← catalogue

The Church and the Empire

by D. J. Medley · English · Gutenberg #7343 · 492,552 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Church and the Empire
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Church and the Empire

Author: D. J. Medley


        
Release date: January 1, 2005 [eBook #7343]
                Most recently updated: December 30, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7343

Credits: Produced by David King, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE ***




Produced by David King, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.




THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL
Volume IV

THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE


THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL
Brief Histories of Her Continuous Life

A series of eight volumes dealing with the history of the Christian
Church from the beginning of the present day.

_Edited by_
The Rev. W. H. Hutton, B.D.
Fellow and Tutor of S. John's College, Oxford,
and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester

THE CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES.
The Rev. Lonsdale Ragg, M.A., Vicar of the Tickencote, Rutlandshire,
and Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral.

"Mr. Ragg has produced something far better than a mere text-book: the
earlier chapters especially are particularly interesting reading. The
whole book is well proportioned and scholarly, and gives the reader
the benefit of wide reading of the latest authorities. The contrasted
growth and fortunes of the Judaic Church of Jerusalem and the Church
of the Gentiles are particularly clearly brought out."--_Church
Times_.

"Written in a clear and interesting style, and summaries the early
records of the growth of the Christian community during the first
century."--_Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette._

"A careful piece of work, which may be read with pleasure and
profit."--_Spectator_.

THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS.
The Rev. Leighton Pullan, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, and
Theological Lecturer of St. John's and Oriel Colleges, Oxford.

"If we may forecast the merits of the series by Pullan's volume, we
are prepared to give it an unhesitating welcome. We shall be surprised
if this book does not supersede of the less interesting Church
histories which have served as text-books for several generations of
theological students."--_Guardian_.

"The student of this important period of Church history--the formative
period--has here a clear narrative, packed with information drawn from
authentic sources and elucidated with the most recent results of
investigation. We do not know of any other work on Church history in
which so much learned and accurate instruction is condensed into a
comparative small space, but at the same time presented in the form of
an interesting narrative. Alike the beginner and the advanced student
will find Mr. Pullan a useful guide and companion."--_Church
Times_.


THE CHURCH AND THE BARBARIANS.
The Editor. _3s. 6d. net._

"In so accomplished hands as Mr. Hutton's the result is an instructive
and suggestive survey of the course of the Church's development
throughout five hundred years, and almost as many countries and
peoples, in Constantinople as well as among the Wends and Prussians,
in Central Asia as well as in the Western Isles." _Review of
Theology and Philosophy._

"The volume will be of great value as giving a bird's-eye view of the
fascinating struggle of the Church with heathenism during those
spacious centuries."--_Church Times._


THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE. 1003-1304.
By D. J. Medley, M.A., Professor of History in the University
of Glasgow. _4s. 6d. net._


THE AGE OF SCHISM. 1304-1503.
By Herbert Bruce, M.A., Professor of History in the
University College, Cardiff.

"We commend the book as being fair in its judicial criticism, a great
point where so thorny a subject as the Great Schism and its issues are
discussed. The art of reading the times, whether ancient or modern,
has descended from Mr. W. H. Hutton to his pupil." _Pall Mall
Gazette._

"It is a great period for so small a book, but a master of his subject
knows always what to leave out, and this volume covers the period in
comfort."--_Expository Times._

"Usually such an 'outline' is a bald and bloodless summary, but Mr.
Bruce has written a narrative which is both readable and
well-informed. We have pleasure in commending his interesting and
scholarly work."--_Glasgow Herald._


THE REFORMATION. 1503-1648.

By the Rev. J. P. Whitney, B.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical
History at King's College, London. _5s. net._

"A book on the Reformation as a whole, not only in England, but in
Europe, has long been needed.... This present volume fills,
therefore, a real want, for in it the Reformation is treated as a
whole.... The value of the book is quite out of proportion to its
size, and its importance will be appreciated by all those whose duty
or inclination calls to study the Reformation."--_Guardian_.

"It is certainly a very full and excellent outline. There is scarcely
a point in this momentous time in regard to which the student, and,
indeed, the ordinary reader, will not find here very considerable
help, as well as suggestive hints for further study."--_Church Union
Gazette_.

THE AGE OF REVOLUTION. 1648-1815.

By the Editor. _4s. 6d. net_.

"The period is a long one for so small a book, but Mr. Hutton has the
gift not of condensing, which is not required, but of selecting the
essential events and vividly characterizing them."--_Expository
Times_.

"Mr. Hutton's past studies in Ecclesiastical History are sure to
secure him a welcome in this new venture. There is a breadth of
treatment, an accurate perspective, and a charitable spirit in all
that he writes which make him a worthy associate of Creighton and
Stubbs in the great field of history."--_Aberdeen Journal_.

THE CHURCH OF MODERN DAYS. 1815-1900.

By the Rev. Leighton Pullan, M.A. [_In preparation._]

London: Rivingtons




THE CHURCH
AND THE EMPIRE

Being an outline of
the history of the church
from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304

By

D. J. Medley, M.A.
Professor of History in the University of Glasgow




EDITORIAL NOTE

While there is a general agreement among the writers as to principles,
the greatest freedom as to treatment is allowed to writers in this
series. The volumes, for example, are not of the same length. Volume
II, which deals with the formative period of the Church, is, not
unnaturally, longer in proportion than the others. To Volume VI, which
deals with the Reformation, has been allotted a similar extension. The
authors, again, use their own discretion in such matters as footnotes
and lists of authorities. But the aim of the series, which each writer
sets before him, is to tell, clearly and accurately, the story of the
Church, as a divine institution with a continuous life.

W. H. Hutton



PREFACE


The late appearance of this volume of the series needs some
explanation. Portions of the book have been written at intervals; but
it is only the enforced idleness of a long convalescence after illness
which has given me the requisite leisure to finish it.

I have tried to avoid overloading my pages with details of political
history; but in no period is it so easy to miss the whole lesson of
events by an attempt to isolate the special influences which affected
the organised society of the Church. The interpretation which I have
adopted of the important events at Canossa is not, of course,
universally accepted; but the fact that it has seldom found expression
in any English work may serve as my excuse.

The Editor of the series, The Rev. W. H. Hutton, has laid me under a
deep obligation, first, by his long forbearance, and more lately, by
his frequent and careful suggestions over the whole book. It is
dangerous for laymen to meddle with questions of technical theology. I
trust that, guided by his expert hand, I have not fallen into any
recognisable heresy!

Mears Ashby,
_October_, 1910.




CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF CHURCH REFORM

CHAPTER II
GREGORY VII AND LAY INVESTITURE

CHAPTER III
THE END OF THE QUARREL

CHAPTER IV
THE SECULAR CLERGY

CHAPTER V
CANONS AND MONKS

CHAPTER VI
ST. BERNARD

CHAPTER VII
THE SCHOOLMEN AND THEOLOGY

CHAPTER VIII
GUELF AND GHIBELLINE (I)

CHAPTER IX
INNOCENT III

CHAPTER X
THE PAPAL POWER IN THE CHURCH

CHAPTER XI
DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH

CHAPTER XII
HERESIES

CHAPTER XIII
THE MENDICANT ORDERS

CHAPTER XIV
THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN

CHAPTER XV
GUELF AND GHIBELLINE (II)

CHAPTER XVI
THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE AND OF THE PAPACY

CHAPTER XVII
THE CHURCHES OF THE EAST



The Church and the Empire

Introductory


[Sidenote: Political thought in Middle Ages.]

The period of three centuries which forms our theme is the central
period of the Middle Ages. Its interests are manifold; but they almost
all centre round the great struggle between Empire and Papacy, which
gives to mediaeval history an unity conspicuously lacking in more
modern times. The history of the Church during these three hundred
years is more political than at any other period. In order to
understand the reason for this it will be well at the outset to sketch
in brief outline the political theories propounded in the Middle Ages
on the relations of Church and State. So only can we avoid the
inevitable confusion of mind which must result from the use of terms
familiar in modern life.

[Sidenote: Unity of world.]

Medieval thought, then, drawing its materials from Roman, Germanic and
Christian sources, conceived the Universe as _Civitas Dei_, the
State of God, embracing both heaven and earth, with God as at once the
source, the guide and the ultimate goal. Now this Universe contains
numerous parts, one of which is composed of mankind; and the destiny
of mankind is identified with that of Christendom. Hence it follows
that mankind may be described as the Commonwealth of the Human Race;
and unity under one law and one government is essential to the
attainment of the divine purpose.

[Sidenote: Duality of organisation.]

But this very unity of the whole Universe gives a double aspect to the
life of mankind, which has to be spent in this world with a view to
its continuation in the next. Thus God has appointed two separate
Orders, each complete in its own sphere, the one concerned with the
arrangement of affairs for this life, the other charged with the
preparation of mankind for the life to come.

[Sidenote: Relations of Church and State.]

But this dualism of allegiance was in direct conflict with the idea of
unity. The two separate Orders were distinguished as
_Sacerdotium_ and _Regnum_ or _Imperium_; and the need
felt by mediaeval thinkers for reconciling these two in the higher
unity of the _Civitas Dei_ began speculations on the relation
between the ecclesiastical and the secular spheres.

[Sidenote: Theory of Church party.]

The champions of the former found a reconciliation of the two spheres
to consist in the absorption of the secular by the ecclesiastical. The
one community into which, by the admission of all, united mankind was
gathered, must needs be the Church of God. Of this Christ is the Head.
But in order to realise this unity on earth Christ has appointed a
representative, the Pope, who is therefore the head of both spheres in
this world. But along with this unity it must be allowed that God has
sanctioned the separate existence of the secular no less than that of
the ecclesiastical dominion. This separation, however, according to
the advocates of papal power, did not affect the deposit of authority,
but affected merely the manner of its exercise. Spiritual and temporal
power in this world alike belonged to the representative of Christ.

[Sidenote: Sinful origin of State.]

But the bolder advocates of ecclesiastical power were ready to explain
away the divine sanction of temporal authority. Actually existing
states have often originated in violence. Thus the State in its
earthly origin may be regarded as the work of human nature as affected
by the Fall of Man: like sin itself, it is permitted by God.
Consequently it needs the sanction of the Church in order to remove
the taint. Hence, at best, the temporal power is subject to the
ecclesiastical: it is merely a means for working out the higher
purpose entrusted to the Church. Pope Gregory VII goes farther still
in depreciation of the temporal power. He declares roundly that it is
the work of sin and the devil. "Who does not know," he writes, "that
kings and dukes have derived their power from those who, ignoring God,
in their blind desire and intolerable presumption have aspired to rule
over their equals, that is, men, by pride, plunder, perfidy, murder,
in short by every kind of wickedness, at the instigation of the prince
of this world, namely, the devil?" But in this he is only re-echoing
the teaching of St. Augustine; and he is followed, among other
representative writers, by John of Salisbury, the secretary and
champion of Thomas Becket, and by Pope Innocent III. To all three
there is an instructive contrast between a power divinely conferred
and one that has at the best been wrested from God by human
importunity.

[Sidenote: Illustration of relations.]

There are two illustrations of the relation between the spiritual and
secular powers very common among papal writers. Gregory VII, at the
beginning of his reign, compares them to the two eyes in a man's head.
But he soon substitutes for this symbol of theoretical equality a
comparison to the sun and moon, or to the soul and body, whereby he
claims for the spiritual authority, as represented by the soul or the
sun, the operative and illuminating power in the world, without and
apart from which the temporal authority has no efficacy and scarcely
any existence. An illustration equally common, but susceptible of more
diverse interpretation, was drawn from the two swords offered to our
Lord by His disciples just before the betrayal. It was St. Bernard
who, taking up the idea of previous writers that these represented the
sword of the flesh and the sword of the spirit respectively, first
claimed that they both belonged to the Church, but that, while the
latter was wielded immediately by St. Peter's successor, the
injunction to the Apostle to put up in its sheath the sword of the
flesh which he had drawn in defence of Christ, merely indicated that
he was not to handle it himself. Consequently he had entrusted to lay
hands this sword which denotes the temporal power. Both swords,
however, still belonged to the Pope and typified his universal
control. By virtue of his possession of the spiritual sword he can use
spiritual means for supervising or correcting all secular acts. But
although he should render to Caesar what is Caesar's, yet his material
power over the temporal sword also justifies the Pope in intervening
in temporal matters when necessity demands. This is the explanation of
the much debated _Translatio Imperii,_ the transference of the
imperial authority in 800 A.D. from the Greeks to the Franks. It is
the Emperor to whom, in the first instance, the Pope has entrusted the
secular sword; he is, in feudal phraseology, merely the chief vassal
of the Pope. It is the unction and coronation of the Emperor by the
Pope which confer the imperial power upon the Emperor Elect. The
choice by the German nobles is a papal concession which may be
recalled at any time. Hence, if the imperial throne is vacant, if
there is a disputed election, or if the reigning Emperor is neglectful
of his duties, it is for the Pope to act as guardian or as judge; and,
of course, the powers which he can exercise in connection with the
Empire he is still more justified in using against any lesser temporal
prince.

[Sidenote: Theory of Imperial party.]

To this very thorough presentation of the claims of the ecclesiastical
power the partisans of secular authority had only a half-hearted
doctrine to oppose. Ever since the days of Pope Gelasius I (492-6),
the Church herself had accepted the view of a strict dualism in the
organisation of society and, therefore, of the theoretical equality
between the ecclesiastical and the secular organs of government.
According to this doctrine Sacerdotium and Imperium are independent
spheres, each wielding the one of the two swords appropriate to
itself, and thus the Emperor no less than the Pope is _Vicarius
Dei_. It is this doctrine behind which the champions of the Empire
entrench themselves in their contest with the Papacy. It was asserted
by the Emperors themselves, notably by Frederick I and Frederick II,
and it has been enshrined in the writings of Dante.

[Sidenote: Its weakness.]

The weak point of this theory was that it was rather a thesis for
academic debate than a rallying cry for the field of battle. Popular
contests are for victory, not for delimitation of territory. And its
weakness was apparent in this, that while the thorough-going partisans
of the Church allowed to the Emperor practically no power except such
as he obtained by concession of or delegation from the Church, the
imperial theory granted to the ecclesiastical representative at least
an authority and independence equal to those claimed for itself, and
readily admitted that of the two powers the Church could claim the
greater respect as being entrusted with the conduct of matters that
were of more permanent importance.

Moreover, historical facts contradicted this idea of equality of
powers. The Church through her representatives often interfered with
decisive effect in the election and the rejection of secular
potentates up to the Emperor himself: she claimed that princes were as
much subject to her jurisdiction as other laymen, and she did not
hesitate to make good that claim even to the excommunication of a
refractory ruler and--its corollary--the release of his subjects from
their oath of allegiance. Finally, the Church awoke a responsive echo
in the hearts of all those liable to oppression or injustice, when she
asserted a right of interposing in purely secular matters for the sake
of shielding them from wrong; while she met a real need of the age in
her exaltation of the papal power as the general referee in all cases
of difficult or doubtful jurisdiction.

Thus the claims of each power as against the other were not at all
commensurate. For while the imperialists would agree that there was a
wide sphere of ecclesiastical rule with which the Emperor had no
concern at all, it was held by the papalists that there was nothing
done by the Emperor in any capacity which it was not within the
competence of the Pope to supervise.




CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHURCH REFORM


Previous to the eleventh century there had been quarrels between
Emperor and Pope. Occasional Popes, such as Nicholas I (858-67), had
asserted high prerogatives for the successor of St. Peter, but we have
seen that the Church herself taught the co-ordinate and the mutual
dependence of the ecclesiastical and secular powers. It was the
circumstances of the tenth century which caused the Church to assume a
less complacent attitude and, in her efforts to prevent her absorption
by the State, to attempt the reduction of the State to a mere
department of the Church.

[Sidenote: Lay investiture of ecclesiastics.]

With the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion of the
Empire the organisation of the Church tended to follow the
arrangements for purposes of civil government. And when at a later
period civil society was gradually organising itself on that
hierarchical model which we know as feudalism, the Church, in the
persons of its officers, was tending to become not so much the
counterpart of the State as an integral part of it. For the clergy, as
being the only educated class, were used by the Kings as civil
administrators, and on the great officials of the Church were bestowed
extensive estates which should make them a counterpoise to the secular
nobles. In theory the clergy and people of the diocese still elected
their bishop, but in reality he came to be nominated by the King, at
whose hands he received investiture of his office by the symbolic
gifts of the ring and the pastoral staff, and to whom he did homage
for the lands of the see, since by virtue of them he was a baron of
the realm. Thus for all practical purposes the great ecclesiastic was
a secular noble, a layman. He had often obtained his high
ecclesiastical office as a reward for temporal service, and had not
infrequently paid a large sum of money as an earnest of loyal conduct
and for the privilege of recouping himself tenfold by unscrupulous use
of the local patronage which was his.

[Sidenote: Clerical marriage.]

Furthermore, in contravention of the canons of the Church, the secular
clergy, whether bishops or priests, were very frequently married. The
Church, it is true, did not consecrate these marriages; but, it is
said, they were so entirely recognised that the wife of a bishop was
called Episcopissa. There was an imminent danger that the
ecclesiastical order would shortly lapse into an hereditary social
caste, and that the sons of priests inheriting their fathers'
benefices would merely become another order of landowners.

[Sidenote: Church reform.]

Thus the two evils of traffic in ecclesiastical offices, shortly
stigmatised as simony and concubinage--for the laws of the Church
forbade any more decent description of the relationship--threatened to
absorb the Church within the State. Professional interests and
considerations of morality alike demanded that these evils should be
dealt with. Ecclesiastical reformers perceived that the only lasting
reformation was one which should proceed from the Church herself. It
was among the secular clergy, the parish priests, that these evils
were most rife. The monasteries had also gone far away from their
original ideals; but the tenth century had witnessed the establishment
of a reformed Benedictine rule in the Congregation of Cluny, and, in
any case, it was in monastic life alone that the conditions seemed
suitable for working out any scheme of spiritual improvement. The
Congregation of Cluny was based upon the idea of centralisation;
unlike the Abbot of the ordinary Benedictine monastery, who was
concerned with the affairs of a single house, the Abbot of Cluny
presided over a number of monasteries, each of which was entrusted
only to a Prior. Moreover, the Congregation of Cluny was free from the
visitation of the local bishops and was immediately under the papal
jurisdiction. What more natural than that the monks of Cluny should
advocate the application to the Church at large of those principles of
organisation which had formed so successful a departure from previous
arrangements in the smaller sphere of Cluny? Thus the advocates of
Church reform evolved both a negative and a positive policy: the
abolition of lay investiture and the utter extirpation of the practice
of clerical marriages were to shake the Church free from the numbing
control of secular interests, and these were to be accomplished by a
centralisation of the ecclesiastical organisation in the hands of the
Pope, which would make him more than a match for the greatest secular
potentate, the successor of Caesar himself.

[Sidenote: Chances of reform.]

It is true that at the beginning of the eleventh century there seemed
little chance of the accomplishment of these reforms. If the great
secular potentates were likely to cling to the practice of investiture
in order to keep a hold over a body of landowners which, whatever
their other obligations, controlled perhaps one-third of the lands in
Western Christendom; yet the Kings of the time were not unsympathetic
to ecclesiastical reform as interpreted by Cluny. In France both Hugh
Capet (987-96) and Robert (996-1031) appealed to the Abbot of Cluny
for help in the improvement of their monasteries, and this example was
followed by some of their great nobles. In Germany reigned Henry II
(1002-24), the last of the Saxon line, who was canonised a century
after his death by a Church penetrated by the influences of Cluny. It
was the condition of the Papacy which for nearly half a century
postponed any attempt at a comprehensive scheme of reform. Twice
already in the course of the tenth century had the intervention of the
German King, acting as Emperor, rescued the see of Rome from
unspeakable degradation. But for nearly 150 years (904-1046), with a
few short interludes, the Papacy was the sport of local factions. At
the beginning of the eleventh century the leaders of these factions
were descended from the two daughters of the notorious Theodora; the
Crescentines who were responsible for three Popes between 1004 and
1012, owing their influence to the younger Theodora, while the Counts
of Tusculum were the descendants of the first of the four husbands who
got such power as they possessed from the infamous Marozia. The first
Tusculan Pope, Benedict VIII (1012-24), by simulating an interest in
reform, won the support of Henry II of Germany, whom he crowned
Emperor; but in 1033 the same faction set up the son of the Count of
Tusculum, a child of twelve, as Benedict IX. It suited the Emperor,
Conrad II, to use him and therefore to acknowledge him; but twice the
scandalised Romans drove out the youthful debauchee and murderer, and
on the second occasion they elected another Pope in his place. But the
Tusculan influence was not to be gainsaid. Benedict, however, sold the
Papacy to John Gratian, who was reputed a man of piety, and whose
accession as Gregory VI, even though it was a simoniacal transaction,
was welcomed by the party of reform. But Benedict changed his mind and
attempted to resume his power. Thus there were three persons in Rome
who had been consecrated to the papal office. The Archdeacon of Rome
appealed to the Emperor Conrad's successor, Henry III, who caused Pope
Gregory to summon a Council to Sutri. Here, or shortly afterwards at
Rome, all three Popes were deposed, and although Benedict IX made
another attempt on the papal throne, and even as late as 1058 his
party set up an anti-pope, the influence of the local factions was
superseded by that of a stronger power.

[Sidenote: Imperial influence.]

But the alternative offered by the German Kings was no more favourable
in itself to the schemes of the reformers than the purely local
influences of the last 150 years. As Otto I in 963, so Henry III in
1046 obtained from the Romans the recognition of his right, as
patrician or princeps, to nominate a candidate who should be formally
elected as their bishop by the Roman people; and as Otto III in 996,
so Henry III now used his office to nominate a succession of men,
suitable indeed and distinguished, but of German birth. This was not
that freedom of the Church from lay control nor the exaltation of the
papal office through which that freedom was to be maintained. Indeed,
so long as fear of the Tusculan influence remained, deference to the
wishes of the German King, who was also Emperor, was indispensable,
and when that King was as powerful as Henry III it was unwise to
challenge unnecessarily and directly the exercise of his powers.

[Sidenote: Leo IX (1048-54).]

But Henry, although, like St. Henry at the beginning of the century,
he kept a strong hand on his own clergy, was yet thoroughly in
sympathy with what may be distinguished as the moral objects of the
reformers; and, indeed, the men whom he promoted to the Papacy were
drawn from the class of higher ecclesiastics who were touched by the
Cluniac spirit. Henry's first two nominees were short-lived. His third
choice was his own cousin, Bruno, Bishop of Toul, who accepted with
reluctance and only on condition that he should go through the
canonical form of election by the clergy and people of Rome. On his
way to Rome, which he entered as a pilgrim, he was joined by the late
chaplain of Pope Gregory VI, Hildebrand, who had been in retirement at
Cluny since his master's death. Not only did the new Pope, Leo IX,
take this inflexible advocate of the Church's claims as his chief
adviser, but he surrounded himself with reforming ecclesiastics from
beyond the Alps. Thus fortified he issued edicts against simoniacal
and married clergy; but finding that their literal fulfilment would
have emptied all existing offices, he was obliged to tone down his
original threats and to allow clergy guilty of simony to atone their
fault by an ample penance. But Leo's contribution to the building up
of the papal power was his personal appearance, not as a suppliant but
as a judge, beyond the Alps. Three times in his six years' rule he
passed the confines of Rome and Italy. On the first occasion he even
held a Council at Rheims, despite the unfriendly attitude of Henry I
of France, whose efforts, moreover, to keep the French bishops from
attendance at the Council met with signal failure. Here and elsewhere
Pope Leo exercised all kinds of powers, forcing bishops and abbots to
clear themselves by oath from charges of simony and other faults, and
excommunicating and degrading those who had offended. And while he
reduced the hierarchy to recognise the papal authority, he overawed
the people by assuming the central part in stately ceremonies such as
the consecration of new churches and the exaltation of relics of
martyrs. All this was possible because the Emperor Henry III supported
him and welcomed him to a Council at Mainz. Nor was it a matter of
less importance that these visits taught the people of Western Europe
to regard the Papacy as the embodiment of justice and the
representative of a higher morality than that maintained by the local
Church.

[Sidenote: Effect of Henry III's death.]

Quite unwittingly Henry III's encouragement of Pope Leo's roving
propensities began the difficulties for his descendants. It is true he
nominated Leo's successor at the request of the clergy and people of
Rome; but Henry's death in 1056 left the German throne to a child of
six under the regency of a woman and a foreigner who found herself
faced by all the hostile forces hitherto kept under by the Emperor's
powerful arm. And when Henry's last Pope, Victor II, followed the
Emperor to the grave in less than a year, the removal of German
influence was complete. The effect was instantaneous. The first Pope
elected directly by the Romans was a German indeed by birth, but he
was the brother of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, who, driven from Germany
by Henry, had married the widowed Marchioness of Tuscany. and was
regarded by a small party as a possible King of Italy and Emperor.
Whatever danger there was in the schemes of the Lotharingian brothers
was nipped in the bud by the death of Pope Stephen IX seven months
after his election. Then it became apparent that the removal of the
Emperor's strong hand had freed not only the upholders of
ecclesiastical reform but also the old Roman factions. The attempt was
easily crushed, but it became clear to the reformers that the papal
election must be secured beyond all possibility of outside
interference. At Hildebrand's suggestion and with the approval of the
German Court, a Burgundian, who was Bishop of Florence, was elected as
Nicholas II. The very name was a challenge, for the first Nicholas
(858-67) was perhaps the Pope who up to that time had asserted the
highest claims for the See of Rome.

[Sidenote: Provision for papal election.]

The short pontificate of the new Nicholas was devoted largely to
measures for securing the freedom of papal elections from secular
interference. By a decree passed in a numerously attended Council at
the Pope's Lateran palace, a College or Corporation was formed of the
seven bishops of the sees in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome,
together with the priests of the various Roman parish churches and the
deacons attendant on them. To the members of this body was now
specially arrogated the term Cardinal, a name hitherto applicable to
all clergy ordained and appointed to a definite church. To all Roman
clergy outside this body and to the people there remained merely the
right of assent, and even this was destined to disappear. More
important historically was the merely verbal reservation of the
imperial right of confirmation, which was further made a matter of
individual grant to each Emperor who might seek it from the Pope. In
view of the revived influence of the local factions it was also laid
down that, although Rome and the Roman clergy had the first claim, yet
the election might lawfully take place anywhere and any one otherwise
eligible might be chosen; while the Pope so elected might exercise his
authority even before he had been enthroned.

[Sidenote: Papacy and Normans.]

But in the presence of a strong Emperor or an unscrupulous faction
even these elaborate provisions Papacy might be useless. The Papacy
needed a champion in the flesh, who should have nothing to gain and
everything to lose by attempting to become its master. Such a
protector was ready to hand in the Normans, who, recently settled in
Southern Italy, felt themselves insecure in the title by which they
held their possessions. Southern Italy was divided between the three
Lombard duchies of Benevento, Capua and Salerno, and the districts of
Calabria and Apulia, which acknowledged the Viceroy or Katapan of the
Eastern Emperor in his seat at Bari. The Saracens, only recently
expelled from the mainland, still held Sicily. Norman pilgrims
returning from Palestine became, at the instigation of local factions,
Norman adventurers, and their leaders obtaining lands from the local
Princes in return for help, sought confirmation of their title from
some legitimate authority. The Western Empire had never claimed these
lands, but none the less Conrad II and Henry III, in return for the
acceptance of their suzerainty, acknowledged the titles which the
Norman leaders had already gained from Greek or Lombard. Rome was
likely to be their next victim, and Leo IX took the opportunity of a
dispute over the city of Benevento to try conclusions with them. A
humiliating defeat was followed by a mock submission of the conqueror.
The danger was in no sense removed. Pope Stephen's schemes for driving
them out of Italy were cut short by his death, and meanwhile the
Norman power increased. Thus there could be no question of expulsion,
nor could the Papacy risk a repetition of the humiliation of Leo IX.
It was Hildebrand who conceived the idea of turning a dangerous
neighbour into a friend and protector. A meeting was arranged at Melfi
between Pope Nicholas and the Norman princes, and there, while on the
one side canons were issued against clerical marriage, which was rife
in the south of Italy, on the other side Robert Guiscard, the Norman
leader, recognised the Pope as his suzerain, and obtained in return
the title of Duke of Apulia and Calabria and of Sicily when he should
have conquered it. Pope Leo's agreement, six years before, had been
made by a defeated and humiliated ecclesiastic with a band of
unscrupulous adventurers. Pope Nicholas was dealing with an actual
ruler who merely sought legitimate recognition of his title from any
whose hostility would make his hold precarious. Thus resting on the
shadowy basis of the donation of Constantine the Pope substituted
himself for the Emperor, whether of West or of East, over the whole of
Southern Italy. Truly the movement for the emancipation of the Church
from the State was already shaping itself into an attempt at the
formation of a rival power.

[Sidenote: Alexander II (1061-73) and Milan.]

The value of this new alliance to the Papacy was put to the test
almost immediately. On the death of Pope Nicholas (1061) the papal and
imperial parties proceeded to measure their strength against each
other. The reformers, acting under the leadership of Hildebrand, chose
as his successor a noble Milanese, Anselm of Baggio, Bishop of Lucca,
who now became Alexander II. He was elected in accordance with the
provisions of the recent Lateran decree, and no imperial ratification
was asked. On the purely ecclesiastical side this choice was a strong
manifesto against clerical marriage. The city of Milan as the capital
of the Lombard kingdom of Italy had for many centuries held itself in
rivalry with Rome. Moreover, it was the stronghold of an aristocratic
and a married clergy, which based its practice on a supposed privilege
granted by its Apostle St. Ambrose. But this produced a reforming
democracy which, perhaps from the quarter whence it gained its chief
support, was contemptuously named by its opponents the Patarins or
Rag-pickers. The first leader of this democratic party had been Anselm
of Baggio. Nicholas II sent thither the fanatical Peter Damiani as
papal legate, and a fierce struggle ended in the abject submission of
the Archbishop of Milan, who attended a synod at Rome and promised
obedience to the Pope.

[Sidenote: German opposition.]

The weak point in the decree of Nicholas II had been that the German
clergy were not represented at the Council which issued it, and it was
construed in Germany as a manifest attempt of the reforming party to
secure the Papacy for Italy as against the German influence maintained
by Henry III. The Roman nobles also had seen in the decree the design
of excluding them from any share in the election. It was only by the
introduction of Norman troops into Rome that the new Pope could be
installed at the Lateran. A few weeks later a synod met at Basle in
the presence of the Empress-Regent and the young Henry IV. The latter
was invested with the title of Patrician, and the election of
Alexander having been pronounced invalid, a new Pope was chosen in the
person of another Lombard, Cadalus Bishop of Parma, who had led the
opposition to the Patarins in the province of Milan. The Normans were
recalled to their dominions, and the imperialist Pope, Honorius II,
was installed in Rome. The struggle between the rival Popes lasted for
three years (1061-4), and fluctuated with the fluctuations of power at
the German court. Here the young King had fallen under the influence
of Archbishop Hanno of Köln, who, surrounded by enemies in Germany,
hoped to gain a party by the betrayal of imperial interests in the
recognition of the decree of Nicholas II and of the claims of
Alexander. Again by the help of a Norman force Alexander was installed
in Rome, where he remained even when Hanno's influence at the German
court gave way to that of Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. Honorius,
however, despite the desertion by the imperialist party, found
supporters until his death in 1072, and it was only by the arms of
Duke Godfrey of Tuscany acting for the imperialists and those of his
own Norman allies that Alexander held Rome until his death.

[Sidenote: Steps towards reformation.]

Meanwhile the ecclesiastical reformation went steadily on under the
direction of Hildebrand. The young King Henry endeavoured to free
himself from the great German ecclesiastics who held him in thrall, by
repudiating the wife whom they had forced upon him. He was checked by
the austere and resolute papal legate, Peter Damiani, and was obliged
to accept Bertha of Savoy, to whom subsequently he became much
attached. Peter Darniani's visit, however, brought him relief in
another way, for the legate took back such a report of the prevalence
of simony that the archbishops of Mainz and Köln were summoned to
Rome, whence they returned so humiliated that their political
influence was gone. It is almost equally remarkable that the two
English Archbishops also appeared at Rome during this Pontificate,
Lanfranc of Canterbury in order that he might obtain the pall without
which he could not exercise his functions as Archbishop, and Thomas of
York, who referred to the Pope his contention that the primacy of
England should alternate between Canterbury and York. In France, too,
we are told that the envoys of Alexander interfered in the smallest
details of the ecclesiastical administration and punished without
mercy all clergy guilty of simony or of matrimony. Almost the last
public act of Pope Alexander was to excommunicate five counsellors of
the young King of Germany, to whom were attributed responsibility for
his acts, and to summon Henry himself to answer charges of simony and
other evil deeds.




CHAPTER II

GREGORY VII AND LAY INVESTITURE


[Sidenote: Gregory VII (1073-85).]

The crowd which attended the funeral of Alexander II acclaimed
Hildebrand as his successor. The Cardinals formally ratified the
choice of the people and contrary to the wish of the German bishops
the young King Henry acquiesced.

[Sidenote: His rise to power.]

The new Pope was born a Tuscan peasant and educated in the monastery
of St. Mary's on the Aventine in Rome. His uncle was the Abbot, and
the monastery was Roman lodging of the Abbot of Cluny. Hildebrand
entered the service of Gregory VI, whom he followed into exile. On his
master's death in 1048 Hildebrand retired to Cluny. Hence he was drawn
once more back to Rome by Pope Leo IX. From this moment his rise was
continuous. Leo made him a Cardinal and gave him the charge of the
papal finances. In 1054 he sent him as legate to France in order to
deal with the heresy of Berengar of Tours. Hildebrand was no
theologian, and he accepted a very vague explanation of Berengar's
views upon the disputed question of the change of the elements in the
Sacrament. On Leo's death Hildebrand headed the deputation which was
sent by the clergy and people of Rome to ask Henry III to nominate his
successor; and again, on the death of Victor II, although Hildebrand
took no part in the choice of Stephen IX, it was he who went to
Germany to obtain a confirmation of the election from the
Empress-Regent. On Stephen's death Hildebrand's prompt action obtained
the election of Nicholas II. It was probably Hildebrand who worded the
decree regulating the mode of papal elections, and whose policy turned
the Normans from troublesome neighbours into faithful allies and
useful instruments of the papal aims. Nicholas rewarded him with the
office of Archdeacon of Rome, which made him the chief administrative
officer of the Roman see and, next to the Pope, the most important
person in the Western Church. Hildebrand was the chief agent in the
election of Alexander II; and the ultimate triumph of Alexander meant
the reinstatement of Hildebrand at head-quarters. Thus it had long
been a question of how soon the maker of Popes would himself assume
the papal title, and this was settled for him by the acclamations of
the people. In memory of his old master he took the title of Gregory
VII. As yet he was only in deacon's orders. Within a month he was
ordained priest; but another month or more elapsed before he was
consecrated bishop.

[Sidenote: Opportunity of reform.]

At last the individual who was most identified in men's minds with the
forward movement in the Church was the acknowledged head of the
ecclesiastical organisation in the West. For more than twenty years he
had been at headquarters intimately knowing and ultimately directing
the course of policy. It was mainly by his exertions that the Church
was now officially committed to the views of the Cluniac reformers.
Yet so much opposition had been called forth as to show that the
success of the party hitherto had depended merely on the circumstances
of the moment. The time seemed to have arrived when matters should be
brought to an issue. The continued existence of the Roman factions and
the power of Henry III had made compromise necessary, and the general
result of the reformers' efforts upon the Church had been
inappreciable. But the lapse of time had done at least two things--it
had cleared the issue and it had brought the opportunity.

[Sidenote: Direction in which reform should move.]

The Church was so entirely enmeshed in the feudal notions of the age
that at first it was not very clear to the reformers where it would be
most effective to begin in the process or cutting her free. But by
this time it was seen that the real link which bound the Church to the
State was the custom by which princes took it on themselves to give to
the new bishop, in return for his oath of homage, investiture of his
office and lands by the presentation of the ring which symbolically
married him to his Church, and of the pastoral staff which committed
to him the spiritual oversight of his diocese. Probably there was not
a single prince in Western Europe who pretended to confer on the new
bishop any of his spiritual powers; but the two spheres of the
episcopal work had become inextricably confused, and in the decay of
ecclesiastical authority the lay power had treated the chief
ecclesiastics as mainly great officers of State and a special class of
feudal baron. In the eyes of the reformers the entire dealing of the
King with the bishops was an act of usurpation, nay, of sacrilege.
Ecclesiastics owed to the sovereign of the country the oath of fealty
demanded of all subjects. But for the rest, neither bishop, abbot, nor
parish priest could be a feudal vassal. The land which any
ecclesiastic held by virtue of his office had been given to the
Church; the utmost claim that any layman could make regarding it was
to a right or rather duty of protection. If the Church was to be
restored to freedom, investiture with ring and staff, and the control
of the lands during vacancy of an ecclesiastical office must all be
claimed back for the Church herself. The oath of homage would then
naturally disappear, and there would no longer be that confusion of
spheres which had resulted in the laicisation and the degradation of
the Church.

[Sidenote: Henry IV and the German clergy.]

Moreover, the moment was propitious for asserting these views to the
fullest extent. The chief represenative of lay authority was no longer
a powerful Emperor nor even a minor in the tutelage of others. He was
a King of full age whose wayward, not to say vicious, courses had
alienated large numbers of his people. It is true that Henry IV never
had much chance of becoming a successful ruler. Taken from his mother
at the age of twelve, for the next ten years (1062-72) he had been
controlled alternately by two guardians, of whom one, Adalbert,
Archbishop of Bremen, allowed him every indulgence, while the other,
Hanno, Archbishop of Koln, hardly suffered him to have a mind of his
own. Since he had become his own master he had plunged into war with
his Saxon subjects. Henry, entangled in this war, answered Gregory's
first admonitions in a conciliatory tone; but in 1075 he decisively
defeated the Saxons and was in no mood to listen to a suggestion for
the diminution of the authority of the German King in his own land,
which he had just so triumphantly vindicated. For Henry imitated his
predecessors in practising investiture of bishops both in Germany and
in Italy; and he realised that the summons of the Pope to the temporal
princes that they should give up such investiture would mean the
transference to the Papacy of the disposal of the temporal fiefs. This
would involve the loss at one blow of half the dominions of the German
King. Moreover, he was encouraged in an attitude of resistance by the
feeling of the German Church. At the first Lenten Synod held in the
Lateran palace after Gregory's accession canons were issued forbidding
all married or simoniacal ecclesiastics to perform ministerial
functions and all laity to attend their ministrations. Immediate
opposition was raised; the German clergy were especially violent: they
declared that this prohibition of marriage was contrary to the
teaching of Christ and St. Paul, that it attempted to make men live
like angels but would only encourage licence, and that, if it were
necessary to choose, they would abandon the priesthood rather than
their wives. Gregory, however, sent legates into various districts
armed with full powers, and succeeded in rousing the populace against
the married clergy.

[Sidenote: Gregory's decree against investiture.]

It was under these circumstances that Gregory determined to bring to
an issue the chief question in dispute between Church and State.
Hitherto he had said nothing against the practice of lay investiture.
Now, however, at the Lenten Synod in 1075, a decree was issued which
condemned both the ecclesiastic, high or low, who should take
investiture from a layman, and also the layman, however exalted in
rank, who should dare to give investiture. The decree had no immediate
effect, and at the end of the year Gregory followed it up with a
letter to the King, in which he threatened excommunication if before
the meeting of the next usual Lenten Synod Henry had not amended his
life and got rid of his councillors, who had never freed themselves
from the papal ban.

[Sidenote: Henry's Answer.]

Henry's answer was given at a Synod of German ecclesiastics at Worms.
Cardinal Hugh the White, who for personal reasons had turned against
Gregory, accused him of the most incredible crimes, and a letter was
despatched in which the bishops renounced their obedience. Henry also
addressed a letter to the Pope, which quite surpassed that of the
bishops in violence of expression. "Henry, King not by usurpation but
by the holy ordination of God, to Hildebrand now no apostolic ruler
but a false monk." It accused him of daring to threaten to take away
the royal power, as if Henry owed it to the Pontiff and not to God:
and it concluded by a summons to him to descend from his position in
favour of some one "who shall not cloak his violence with religion,
but shall teach the sound doctrine of St. Peter." It was nothing new
for a Pope to be deposed by a Council presided over by the Emperor.
And it is true that the same resolution, transmitted by delegates from
Worms, was adopted at Piacenza by a Synod of Italian bishops. But on
this occasion the sentence was uttered by an assembly of exclusively
German bishops, presided over by a King who was not yet crowned
Emperor. If such a sentence was to be effective, Henry should have
followed it up by a march to Rome with an adequate army. He merely
courted defeat when he gave the Pope the opportunity for a retort in
kind. Anathema was the papal weapon, and while the King's declaration
might even be resented by other rulers as an attempt to dictate to
them in a matter of common concern to all, the papal sentence on the
King was regarded by all as influencing the fate, not of the King
only, but of all who remained in communication with him, if not in
this world, at any rate in the world to come. Moreover, in this
particular case, while no one believed the monstrous charges against
Gregory, there was sufficient in Henry's past conduct to give
credibility to anything that might be urged against him.

[Sidenote: Gregory deposes Henry.]

Gregory's rejoinder was delivered at the Lenten Synod of 1076. As
against the twenty-six German bishops assembled at Worms, this Council
contained over a hundred bishops drawn from all parts of Christendom,
while among the laity present was Henry's own mother, the Empress
Agnes. Gregory used his opportunity to the full. In the most solemn
strain he appealed to St. Peter, to the Virgin Mary, to St. Paul and
all the saints, to bear witness that he himself had unwillingly taken
the Papacy. To him, as representative of the Apostle, God had
entrusted the Christian people, and in reliance on this he now
withdrew from Henry, as a rebel against the Church, the rule over the
kingdoms of the Teutons and of Italy, and released all Christians from
any present or future oath made to him. Finally, for his omissions and
commissions alike, Henry is bound in the bonds of anathema "in order
that people may know and acknowledge that thou art Peter, and upon thy
rock the Son of the living God has built His Church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it."

The rhetorical flourish of the King's pronouncement against the Pope
withers before the tremendous appeal of the Pope to his divinely
delegated power to judge the King. Gregory's procedure was little less
revolutionary than that of the King, but the claim to depose might
appear as only a concomitant to the power already wielded by Popes in
bestowing crowns, while for Gregory it had by this time become the
copingstone in the fabric of those relations between Church and State
which he and his party were building up.

[Sidenote: Gregory's allies: Countess Matilda.]

Gregory's position was not devoid of difficulties. Numerous protests
were raised against this assertion of papal power. But events
concurred to justify Gregory's bold action. At the beginning of his
pontificate the Normans were quarrelling among themselves; but in
Tuscany the Countess Matilda had just become complete mistress of the
great inheritance which included a large part of Central Italy. She
was an enthusiastic supporter of the Papacy, and secured North Italy
by a revival of the Patarine party against the Italian bishops who had
repudiated Gregory at Piacenza.

[Sidenote: Rebellious German Nobles.]

But Gregory's most effective allies were Henry's rebellious subjects.
The Saxons broke out again into rebellion in the north, while the
nobles of Southern Germany with the concurrence of the Pope met at
Tribur, near Mainz, in October, 1076. Henry was forced to accept the
most abject terms. He was to submit to the Pope, and the nobles
further agreed among themselves that the Pope should be invited to
pronounce the decisive judgment at a diet to be held at Augsburg a
year later. If by that time Henry had not obtained the papal
absolution, the kingdom would be considered forfeit, and they would
proceed to the election of a new King without waiting for permission
of the Pope. The nobles were hampered by the rivalry of those who
hoped each to be Henry's successor, and they did not wish to found the
election of the new King on the acknowledgment of the papal power of
deposition. They acted, therefore, as if so far, apart from the
excommunication, the papal sentence of deposition had been only
provisional.

[Sidenote: Henry's Action.]

Henry saw that to be reinstated by the Pope in an assembly of his
rebellious subjects would be even more damaging for his prestige than
the original deposition, and, knowing nothing of the agreement of the
nobles for a new election, he determined to go and get his absolution
from the Pope at Rome. He treated the points in dispute between
himself and his opponents as practically settled by his promise of
submission, whereas the Pope desired to pose as arbiter between the
contending parties in Germany; while the nobles aimed at electing a
new King. Quite unconsciously Henry was forcing the hands of both
parties of his opponents, whose obvious interests were in favour of
delay. It was necessary that he should drink the cup of humiliation to
the dregs; but the astute King preferred that it should be at his own
time and place--at once and in Italy, instead of a year hence in
Germany.

[Sidenote: Canossa.]

Henry carried out his design, even though it was in the middle of
winter; and neglecting the welcome of the imperialists of North Italy,
he ultimately tracked the Pope to the Countess Matilda's fortress of
Canossa, in the Apennines, above Modena. But Gregory would listen to
no mediation, and demanded absolute submission to his judgment. So
Henry again took the method of procedure into his own hands and
appeared at intervals during three successive days before the castle
in the garb of a penitent, barefooted and clad in a coarse woollen
shirt. The picturesque account of this world-famous scene, which we
owe to Lambert of Hersfeld, must be regarded as the monastic version
current among the papal partisans. Gregory himself, who was scarcely
likely to minimise his own triumph, in his letter to the German nobles
says nothing of these details. He only relates that even his own
followers exclaimed that "tyrannical ferocity" rather than "apostolic
severity" was the characteristic of his act.

[Sidenote: Result Of Canossa.]

Thus Henry forced the hand of the Pope, who as a priest could not
refuse his absolution to one who showed himself ready to submit to the
severest possible penance for his sins. The only course open to
Gregory was to accept the situation on which he had lost the hold, and
to try to get some political concessions in the negotiations which
must follow. The terms did not differ much from those arranged at
Tribur: Henry should accept the decision of the diet of the German
nobles, presided over by the Pope, as to his continued right to the
crown, while if the judgment was favourable, he should implicitly obey
the Pope for the future in all that concerned the Church. But, on the
other hand, the papal excommunication and absolute sentence of
deposition were removed, and the whole excuse for continued rebellion
was thus withdrawn from his German opponents. Henry had undoubtedly
been humiliated and had acknowledged the papal arbitration in Germany:
but modern feelings probably exaggerate the humiliation of the
penitential system, and Henry had at least divided his enemies. The
Pope had undertaken to see fair play between Henry and his German
subjects: the German nobles had based their action on Henry's past
conduct, for which he had now done penance. Henry had obtained an
acknowledgment from the Pope that his right to the kingship was at any
rate an open question.

[Sidenote: Election of an anti-king.]

The German nobles had been betrayed by the Pope, but they could not
afford to quarrel with him. They had been outwitted by Henry, and
against him they proceeded as having violated the Agreement of Tribur.
A Diet met at Forchheim, in Franconia, in March, 1077. It was chiefly
composed of lay nobles, but papal legates were present, whom Gregory
instructed to work for a postponement until he himself could come. But
the nobles were determined, and Henry's brother-in-law, Duke Rudolf of
Suabia, was chosen King. Gregory, however, did not intend to have his
hand forced again, and for three years (1077-80) he refused to
acknowledge Rudolf and tried to pose as arbiter between him and Henry.
Five times Rudolf's supporters wrote remonstrating indignantly against
this neutrality. Gregory excused himself on the ground that his
legates had been deceived and had acted under compulsion in
acquiescing in the action of the diet at Forchheim. He had good
reasons for his delay. He was determined to secure recognition of the
right which he claimed for the Papacy as the real determining force in
the dispute, an act which the nobles had deliberately prevented.
Moreover, he was a little afraid of a trial of strength with Henry at
the moment. For while Henry's promptness had caused the Pope to break
faith with his allies, Gregory's severity had gathered round Henry a
party which made the King more powerful than he yet had been. Thus in
Lombardy the Countess Matilda was faced by a revived imperialist party
which seriously threatened her dominions, while in Germany the clergy,
the lesser nobles and the cities rallied round the King.

[Sidenote: Gregory accepts him.]

So long, then, as the contest seemed doubtful Gregory withheld his
decision. At length, in 1080, when, despite two victories, Rudolf was
gaining no advantage, Gregory felt that further delay might make Henry
too strong to be affected by the papal judgment. Accordingly, at the
usual Lenten Synod he renewed the excommunication and deposition of
Henry, recognised Rudolf as King of Germany, and even prophesied for
the excommunicated monarch a speedy death. One papal partisan
afterwards explained this as referring to Henry's spiritual death!
Gregory is further said to have sent a crown to Rudolf, bearing the
legend "Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolpho," but the story is
doubtful. The answer of Henry's party was given in successive synods
of German or Italian bishops, who declared Gregory deposed, and
elected as his substitute Henry's Chancellor, Guibert, Archbishop of
Ravenna, who took the title of Clement III.

[Sidenote: Death of anti-King.]

Gregory's decisive move was a failure. There were now two Kings and
two Popes, and all hope of a peaceful settlement was gone. None of the
nations of Europe responded to Gregory's appeal. Robert Guiscard, the
Norman leader, was busy with his designs on the Eastern Empire.
Gregory's only chance was a victory in Germany and the fulfilment of
his rash prophecy. In October, 1080, Henry was defeated in the heart
of Saxony on the Elster, but it was Gregory's accepted King, Rudolf,
who was killed. One chronicler reports Rudolf as acknowledging in his
dying moments the iniquity of his conduct. Saxony remained in revolt;
but until a new King could be agreed upon Henry was practically safe
and could turn to deal with the situation in Italy. There could be no
thought of peace. Gregory's supporters were upheld by the enthusiasm
of fanaticism, while by acts and words he had driven his enemies to
exasperation, and what had begun as a war of principles had now sunk
to a personal struggle between Henry and Hildebrand.

[Sidenote: Death of Gregory.]

The renewal of the sentence against Henry had caused a reaction in his
favour in Northern Italy. Soon after the episode of Canossa, the
Countess Matilda, having no heir, had bequeathed her entire
possessions to the Roman see and become a papal vassal for the term of
her own life. But most of the Tuscan cities declared for Henry and
thus entirely neutralised her power. Robert Guiscard was not to be
tempted back from his projects against the Eastern Empire, even if it
be true that Gregory offered him the Empire of the West. Thus Henry
entered Italy unhindered early in 1081, and even the news that his
opponents had found a successor to Rudolf in the person of Herman of
Luxemburg did not stop his march. The siege of Rome lasted for nearly
three years (1081-4), but ultimately he obtained possession of all the
city except the castle of St. Angelo. Henry's Pope, Clement III, was
consecrated, and on Easter Day Henry, together with his wife, at
length obtained the imperial crown. But meanwhile he had made a fatal
move. The Eastern Emperor Alexius persuaded him to make mischief in
Apulia. Henry fell into the trap. Robert Guiscard rushed back to
defend his own territories, and now determined to carry out his
obligations as a papal vassal. Henry was taken unawares and had to
retire before the Normans, who forced their way into Rome and cruelly
sacked and burnt it. Gregory was rescued, but life for him in Rome was
no longer possible. The Romans had betrayed him to Henry, and now his
allies had destroyed the city. He retired with the Normans to Salerno,
where, a year later, he died (May, 1085), bitterly attributing his
failure to his love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity.

[Sidenote: His reasons for his failure.]

But we cannot ratify Gregory's own judgment on the reasons for his
failure. Rather the blame is to be laid upon his lack of
statesmanship. His egotism and his fanaticism worked together to make
him believe that the supremacy of the spiritual power which he aimed
at might be attained by very secular devices. In action he showed
himself a pure opportunist, approving at one time what he condemned at
another. And yet he had so little of an eye for the line which
separates the practicable from the ideal that at Canossa he humiliated
Henry beyond all hope of reconciliation, and he died in exile because
he would not listen to any compromise which might be an acknowledgment
that he had exaggerated his own claims. Thus, despite the undoubted
purity of his life and the ultimate loftiness of his ideals, he is to
be regarded rather as a man of immense force of character than as a
great ecclesiastical statesman, rather as the stirrer-up of divine
discontent than as a creative mind which gives a new turn to the
desires and impulses of the human race.

[Sidenote: His activity in Europe.]

All this is borne out by his dealings outside Germany and Italy. He
conducted a very extensive correspondence with princes as well as
ecclesiastics all over Europe. Indeed this, as much as the despatch of
legates and the annual attendance of bishops at the Lenten Synod, was
one of the means by which the Papacy strove to make itself the central
power of Christendom. These letters deal with all kinds of subjects
and bear ample witness to his personal piety and high moral aims. But
alongside of these come arrogant assertions of papal authority. He
claims as fiefs of St. Peter on various grounds Hungary, Spain,
Denmark, Corsica, Sardinia; he gives the title of King to the Duke of
Dalmatia; he even offers to princes who belong to the Eastern Church a
better title to their possessions as held from St. Peter.

[Sidenote: His policy in France.]

Gregory's great contest with the Empire has been described without
interruption, as if it were the only struggle of his time, instead of
being merely the most important episode in a very busy life. And if we
ask in conclusion why it was fought out in the imperial dominions
rather than elsewhere, the answer will be instructive of his character
and methods of action. At the beginning of his pontificate his
harshest phrases were directed against Philip I of France, who added
to the crimes of lay investiture and shameless simony a scandalous
personal immorality. Ultimately Gregory threatened him with
excommunication and deposition. But he never passed beyond threats.
The reason is to be found in the fact that Gregory was soon in pursuit
of larger game. The French King only shared with his great nobles the
investiture of the bishops in the kingdom. Moreover, the French
bishops were not as a body great secular potentates like the German
bishops. The opposition to reform in France was passive, not active.
Crown, nobles, and Church stood together in opposition: there was no
papal party. Not enough was to be gained by a victory, and there was
great chance of a defeat. The result was that Philip continued his
simoniacal transactions and never entirely gave up investiture, while
Gregory allowed himself to be satisfied with occasional promises of
better things. His dealings with the French bishops are equally
inconclusive. For six years (1076-82) two of the papal legates divided
France between them, practically superseded the local ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, and acted with the utmost severity against all,
ecclesiastics or laymen, who practised the methods now under
condemnation. Great opposition was aroused and the legates went in
peril of their lives. They were only carrying out strenuously the
principles laid down under Gregory's guidance in many acts of synods
and inculcated by Gregory in numberless private letters. And yet
Gregory is found frequently undoing their acts, restoring bishops whom
they have deposed, accepting excuses or explanations which cannot
possibly have deceived him.

[Sidenote: In England.]

His policy towards England affords another instructive contrast. Both
in Normandy and in England William the Conqueror practised investiture
of his bishops and abbots and held his ecclesiastics in an iron grip.
He refused the papal demand for homage for his English kingdom and he
would allow no papal interference with his clergy without the King's
permission. Archbishop Lanfranc also only consented to accept the
decree against married clergy with a serious limitation--while married
canons were to dismiss their wives at once, parish priests already
married were not interfered with; but marriage was forbidden to clergy
in the future, and bishops were warned not to ordain married men. But
William's expedition to England had been undertaken with the approval
of Hildebrand, he did not practise simony, and he acknowledged the
principle of a celibate clergy, while he promised the payment of the
tribute of Peter's Pence from England. Moreover, William was not a man
to be trifled with: he was a valuable friend and would certainly be a
dangerous enemy. Consequently no question of the lawfulness of
investiture was mooted during his lifetime. Gregory contented himself
with threats against Lanfranc. But the English Archbishop owed a
grudge to Gregory, who had treated with a culpable indulgence the
great heresiarch Berengar after Lanfranc had vanquished him and
convicted him of heresy; and Lanfranc knew that under William's
sheltering favour he was safe from the papal ban.

Thus, while in France Gregory would have to face an united people, in
England he shrank before the personality of the King. In Germany, on
the other hand, he found a blameworthy King and a discontented people.
All the elements were present for the successful interference of an
external power. Moreover, the peculiar relations in which this
external power--the Papacy--stood towards the German King, the
prospective Emperor, gave every excuse, if any were needed, for such
interference. Finally and most especially, since these imperial
prospects made the German King the first among the monarchs of Western
Europe, a victory over him would carry a prestige which lesser
potentates would be bound to acknowledge.




CHAPTER III

THE END OF THE QUARREL


[Sidenote: A momentary peace.]

It remained to be seen whether Gregory's failure implied Henry's
success. The Emperor returned to Germany, where a strong desire for
peace had grown up and was taking practical shape. In some dioceses
the Truce of God was proclaimed, which, under heavy ecclesiastical
penalties, forbade hostilities during certain days of the week and
certain seasons of the year. Henry took up this idea, which as yet was
too partial to be effective, and in 1085, in a Synod at Mainz under
his presidency, it was proclaimed for the whole kingdom. The
unfortunate anti-King Herman found himself deserted, and died, a
fugitive, in 1088. Henry's moderation concluded what the desire for
peace had begun, and even Saxony seemed to be reconciled to his rule.

[Sidenote: Urban II (1088-99).]

But his triumph was short-lived. Between him and any lasting peace
stood the anti-Pope Clement III; for all who had received consecration
at Clement's hands were bound at all hazards to maintain the
lawfulness of his election. Moreover, Clement's opponent now was a man
to be reckoned with. The first choice of the Gregorian party,
Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, could not be consecrated for a
year after his election, and four months later he was dead (September,
1087). The partisans of Clement were too strong in Rome, and the next
election was carried out with total disregard of the decree of
Nicholas II. It took place at Terracina in March, 1088, and was made
by a large number of clergy in addition to the Cardinals. The choice
fell upon Otto, Bishop of Ostia, a Frenchman of noble family and a
monk of Cluny; but it was some years before Urban II could regard Rome
as his headquarters.

[Sidenote: His policy against Henry.]

In some ways Urban was more uncompromising than his master Gregory. He
upheld the papal legates in their strict treatment of the French
bishops; he actually launched against Philip I of France the
excommunication which Gregory had only threatened; to the prohibition
of lay investiture he added an explicit command that bishops and
clergy should not do homage to any layman. But while he showed himself
thus in thorough sympathy with his predecessor, in his power of
dealing with circumstances he proved himself by far the superior. A
succession of clever if thoroughly unscrupulous measures restored the
fortunes of the papal party. Henry had succeeded for the moment in
dividing and isolating his enemies. Urban set himself to unite the
chief opponents of Henry on both sides of the Alps. He planned a
marriage between the middle-aged widow, the Countess Matilda of
Tuscany, and the eighteen-year-old son of Welf, Duke of Bavaria
(1089). Matilda was ready to sacrifice herself for the good of the
cause. The Welfs, ignorant of Matilda's gift of her lands to the
Papacy, eagerly accepted the bait; but soon discovering that they were
being used as tools, they ceased to give any help, and in fact became
reconciled to the Emperor. But meanwhile the Pope had discovered other
more deadly weapons with which to wound the Emperor. The deaths of the
anti-Kings had left the papal party without a leader in Germany.
Events had shown the firm hold of the hereditary claim and the Salian
House upon a large portion of the Empire. The only acceptable leader
would be a member of Henry's own house. Henry's actions played into
their hands. His eldest son, Conrad, had been crowned at Aachen in
1087 and sent into Italy to act as his father's representative. He is
described as a young man of studious and dreamy character, unpractical
and easily influenced. In 1087 Henry lost his faithful wife Bertha,
and a year later he married a Russian Princess, Praxedis, who was the
widow of the Count of the Northern March. The marriage was unhappy;
each accused the other of misconduct; and Henry, suspecting the
relations of Conrad with his stepmother, put them both in prison.
Perhaps Conrad had already been worked upon by the papal party. He
escaped, took refuge with the Countess Matilda, and was crowned King
of Italy (1093). But he was only the tool of others. Far more
immediately dangerous was the escape of Praxedis (1094), who laid
before the Pope the foulest charges against Henry. To her lasting
shame the Countess Matilda was the chief agent in these family
revolts. The effect on Henry's position in Italy was disastrous. Pope
Urban finally recovered Rome, and Conrad, having won the cities of
Lombardy, took an oath of fealty to the Papacy in return for a promise
of the Empire.

[Sidenote: Beginning of the Crusades.]

And just as if the success of these diabolical schemes was not a
sufficient triumph, fortune at this moment gave the Pope a chance of
superseding the Emperor in the eyes of all Europe, by inaugurating a
great popular movement of which under different circumstances the
Emperor would have been the natural leader. In 1085 the Eastern
Emperor Alexius had appealed to Henry against the Normans, but now
Henry was a negligible quantity--excommunicated, crowned Emperor by an
anti-pope, not likely to undertake a distant expedition. In 1095,
therefore, when Alexius needed aid against the Seljuk Turks, it was to
the Pope that he sent his envoys, who appeared at the Synod of
Piacenza. Those late converts to Mohammedanism had established their
kingdom of Roum over the greater part of Asia Minor with its capital
at the venerable city of Nicæa, and had captured Jerusalem, which thus
passed out of the hands of the tolerant Caliphs of Cairo into those of
the most fanatical section of Mohammedans. Pilgrims returning from
Jerusalem spread through Europe tales of the harsh treatment to which
they were subjected. Then in 1087 a new tribe of Saracens, the
Almoravides, crossed from Africa to Spain and inflicted a severe
defeat upon a Christian army. It seemed almost as if a combined
movement of the Mohammedan world had begun for the final extinction of
Christendom. If Gregory had been free he would have wished to promote
the reunion of the Churches by sending help to the Eastern Empire; so
that it was no novel idea that was suggested to the assembled magnates
at Piacenza. Urban II no doubt saw the opportunity offered for
asserting the leadership of the western world. Alexius' envoys were
heard with sympathy; but Urban felt the need of appeal to a larger
public, and summoned a great Council to Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne,
where he would be among his own countrymen. Here in November, 1095, he
delivered before a vast concourse of persons assembled in the open air
an impassioned appeal on behalf of the suffering Christians of the
east. The result answered his utmost expectation, and the cry of the
assembled multitude, "God wills it," was the ratification of the papal
leadership. All methods were taken to stir the feelings of the west.
The vast ecclesiastical organisation was used in order to transmit
invitations to possible crusaders; the penitential system of the
Church was brought to bear on those already conscious of a sinful
life; popular preachers, such as Peter the Hermit, were employed to
rouse the interest of the masses; the Pope himself spent the
succeeding months in a tour through Southern France; and arrangements
were made for the start of the first expedition from the Italian ports
at the end of the summer of 1096, under the leadership of a legate
appointed by the Pope.

[Sidenote: The first Crusade.]

It is not possible here to follow the fortunes of the Crusaders.
Several unauthorised expeditions, which bore witness to the popular
enthusiasm, made their way through Southern Germany; but the
disorderly crowds which composed them perished either at the hands of
the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire, whom they treated as
schismatics, or among the Turks in Asia Minor. The real expedition
passed partly by land, partly by sea from the Italian ports to
Constantinople, whence the Crusaders set out across Asia Minor. Nicæa
was taken in June, 1097; the Sultan of Roum was overthrown in battle
at Dorylæum in July; Antioch detained the Crusaders from October,
1097, to June, 1098; and it was only in July, 1099, that after a siege
of forty days Jerusalem was captured from the Saracens of Egypt, who
had recently recovered it from the Turks.

[Sidenote: Its effect on the quarrel.]

But whatever may have been Urban's success in his own land of France
and elsewhere, in Germany, at any rate, his efforts to turn the
current against the Emperor had entirely failed. Of German lands
Lorraine alone sent warriors to the First Crusade. The movement did
not penetrate to the east of the Rhine, and the number of Germans who
helped to swell the multitude of crusaders who marched through
Southern Germany was inappreciable. At the same time the settlement of
the questions at issue between Papacy and Empire were indefinitely
postponed; for it would have been treason to the crusading cause to
press the papal claims against Henry at this moment. It was Henry's
turn to experience some good fortune. The proclamation of the Truce of
God under his auspices, the manifest interest of the German
ecclesiastics, and his own policy of favouring the rising cities
combined to strengthen his position. Thus in 1098 he was able to
obtain from the German nobles the deposition of his rebellious son
Conrad and the election of his younger son Henry as King, who was made
to promise that during his father's lifetime he would not act
politically against him. Then in 1099 Pope Urban died, and was
followed in 1100 by the anti-Pope Clement III, and in 1101 by Conrad.
All the personal causes of disunion were being removed. Moreover, the
success of the crusading policy made it impossible that Henry or
Germany should stand apart from it altogether. Although Jerusalem was
the capital of a Christian kingdom and other principalities centred
round Tripoli, Antioch, and the more distant Edessa, powerful
Mohammedan Princes lay close beside them at Damascus, Aleppo, and
Mossul, as well as to the south in Egypt. There was need of constant
reinforcement, for the fighting was continual. Under these inducements
Germany began to contribute crusaders to the cause. Duke Welf of
Bavaria led an army eastwards in 1101. In 1103 Henry's efforts in
favour of peace culminated in the proclamation at the Diet of Mainz of
the first imperial land peace sworn between King and nobles, which
bound the parties to it for four years to maintain the peace towards
all communities in the land. This was intended as a preliminary to
Henry's participation in an expedition to the east.

[Sidenote: Death of Henry IV.]

But this was the very last thing desired by Henry's enemies, and there
began a most unscrupulous attack which ended only with his death. Pope
Urban's successor, Pascal II, strengthened by the death of the
anti-Pope Clement and the failure of his party to maintain a
successor, renewed the excommunication against Henry, and did
everything deliberately to stir up strife in Germany. The nobles were
angry at the cessation of private war and at the favour shown by Henry
to the towns. But again they lacked a leader, and with diabolical
craft the papal party worked upon the young King Henry by threatening
to set up against him an anti-King who should rob him of the eventual
succession. The result was that the young King broke his solemn
promise, set up the standard of revolt, and was joined by nobles,
ecclesiastical as well as lay, and by the restless Saxon rebels. By a
trick he got his father into his power and forced him formally to
abdicate, while he himself was crowned King by the papal legate. But
the Emperor escaped, and with marvellous energy gathered adherents;
but a renewal of the struggle was staved off by his own death after a
few days' illness on August 6th, 1106.

[Sidenote: His justification.]

Henry never shook himself free from the difficulties of his own early
misdeeds; but the rights upon which he took his stand were those
exercised by his predecessors. The uncompromising attitude of his
opponents and their humiliation of him made it a life-long struggle
between them. Henry was no saint; but his opponents' tactics were
indefensible. Under less adverse circumstances he might have proved a
successful ruler. But he was the victim of a party which deliberately
subordinated means to ends in pursuit of an ideal which Henry could
scarcely be expected to understand or appreciate.

[Sidenote: Henry V.]

The papal party in its malice had overreached itself in selecting
Henry V as its champion. True, he had destroyed the most stubborn
enemy of the Papacy; but his own interests caused him to adopt his
father's policy. His one object was to recover the prestige which the
German King had lost in the struggles of the last twenty years. He was
undisputed King in Germany; he showed an unscrupulous and overbearing
demeanour which aroused opposition on all sides. He was not likely to
be content with less power than his father had demanded over the
German clergy, and at the first vacancies he invested the new bishops.

[Sidenote: Growth of a party of compromise on investiture.]

Henry's bold action was not altogether without reason. For some years
there had been growing up within the ranks of the advocates of reform
a moderate party which, while opposed to simony and clerical marriage,
saw in the continued and close union of Church and State an
indispensable guarantee of social order. They aimed therefore at
conserving the rights of the Crown no less than at recovering those of
the Church. This party is found especially among the French clergy.
One of its chief spokesmen, the Canonist Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, who
had suffered much for his enthusiasm for reform, insists in his
correspondence even with the Pope himself, that the prohibition passed
upon lay investiture is not among the class of matters which have been
settled by a law for ever binding, but among those which have been
enjoined or forbidden, as the case might be, for the honour or profit
of the Church, and he appropriately bids the papal legate beware lest
the Roman clergy should incur the charge of taking tithe of mint and
rue while they omit the weightier precepts of the law. Moreover, both
he and his friend Hugh of Fleury, in a treatise dealing with the
"Royal Power and Priestly Office," maintain that the King has the
power, "by the instigation of the Holy Spirit," of nominating bishops,
or at least of granting permission for their election; and that, while
the royal investiture, however made by word or act, pretends to bestow
no spiritual authority, but merely estates or other results of royal
munificence, it is for the archbishop to commit to a newly elected
prelate the cure of souls.

[Sidenote: Settlement in England.]

This distinction, repugnant as it was to the extremists, soon found
practical application. Lanfranc's successor in the See of Canterbury,
Anselm, was, like his predecessor, an Italian, transferred from
Normandy to England. He had to contend with the typical King of an
unrestrained feudalism in the person of William II. A succession of
quarrels ended in Anselm's retirement to Italy. Recalled by Henry I,
he took back with him the maxims of the reformers about investiture,
and refused to do the required homage to the new King. Henry was not
an unreasonable man, and he sent Anselm to bring about some
arrangement with the Pope. However, it was not until a rupture was
imminent that Pope Pascal was persuaded to acquiesce in an agreement
on the lines advocated by Ivo of Chartres and his party. By this
Concordat (1107) Henry I agreed to give up his claim to invest with
the ring and staff, while Archbishop Anselm allowed that the elected
bishop might do homage for his lands to the King.

[Sidenote: Pascal II (1099-1118).]

At present neither side in the Empire was sufficiently honest in its
intentions to be willing to accept so reasonable a settlement. But the
fact that the Pope had felt himself obliged to allow it in one case
sensibly weakened his position and correspondingly strengthened that
of the German King. It was typical of Pascal's position in general.
Though strongly Gregorian in principle, he was neither clever nor
courageous, and was inclined to take up a position which he could not
maintain. Intent on renewing the prohibition of lay investiture and
afraid of Henry, Pascal determined to support himself upon France.
Here, at any rate, Philip I had gradually dropped the practice of
investiture of bishops. The papal censures of his scandalous private
conduct uttered by Gregory and Urban had had no effect. Pascal
accepted professions of amendment and acts of humiliation, and ceased
to trouble himself further about Philip's private affairs. A Council
of French bishops was held at Troyes (1107), where the decrees against
lay investiture were renewed. The one gleam of hope for the future
appeared in Pascal's deliberate abstention from any pronouncement
against the King in person. Henry, occupied on the eastern border,
could not pay his first visit to Italy until the beginning of 1111,
and it was not without significance that on the eve of setting out he
betrothed himself to the daughter of Henry I of England. He was more
fortunate than his father had been in the moment of his visit. The
Lombard cities quarrelling among themselves were quickly forced to
submission; the Countess Matilda, grown old and tired of strife, sent
her envoys to do homage for the imperial fiefs; the Normans had just
lost their Duke. Pope Pascal, finding himself isolated, did not dare
to meet by a simple negative Henry's demand for the right of
investiture as well as for his coronation as Emperor.

[Sidenote: His proposal.]

By way of escaping from his difficulty he sent to the King an
astonishing proposal. The King was to renounce the right of
investiture and all interference in the elections, in return for which
the prelates should give up all imperial lands and rights with which
they were endowed, retaining merely the right to tithes, offerings,
and private gifts: the papal rights over the Patrimony of St. Peter
and the Norman lands were specially excepted. It has been pointed out
that this was the policy which Count Cavour made famous as "a free
Church in a free State." It seems almost impossible that Pascal should
have thought that the German bishops would accept this solution: he
may have hoped that they could be coerced into it. But in contracting
himself out of the obligations to be imposed on all other
ecclesiastical dignitaries, he practically renounced any claim to set
the policy of the Church. Henry may have aimed at digging an
impassable ditch between the Pope and the German bishops. It was an
impossible agreement; for neither bishops nor lay nobles would wish to
see so large an addition to the King's resources, while Henry himself
could not afford to surrender the right of investiture, since it would
stultify his claim to a voice in the election of the Pope.

[Sidenote: Henry's success.]

The publication of the agreement at Rome caused great tumults, Henry
contriving that all the odium should fall upon the Pope. Then, since
Pascal could not fulfil the part of the agreement which he had made on
behalf of the Church, Henry forced him, the successor of Gregory, to
acquiesce in the exercise by the German King of the right of
investiture with ring and staff. Henry was crowned Emperor, though
with very maimed ceremonial, and returned in triumph to Germany.

[Sidenote: Pascal's withdrawal.]

But his triumph was short, for he was immediately threatened with
danger from two quarters. On the one side the leaders of the
Ultramontane party were naturally most wrathful at this betrayal of
their cause, and Pascal, threatened with deposition, placed himself in
their hands. At the Lenten Synod of 1112 he confirmed all the decrees
of his predecessor against lay investiture, thus annulling his own
agreement with Henry. But he avoided issuing any sentence of
excommunication against Henry in person. His own legates, however, had
no such scruples, and in France Cardinal Conon took advantage of the
strong feeling among the clergy to launch excommunications against the
Emperor in several ecclesiastical Councils during 1114 and 1115.
Guido, Archbishop of Vienne, presiding over a Council of Henry's own
subjects at Vienne in 1112, had already condemned their sovereign and
forced Pascal to acquiesce in the resolution.

[Sidenote: Henry's difficulties.]

Henry's right policy would no doubt have been to compel the Pope to
observe the agreement. But it was more than three years before he
could return to Italy. For revolt had broken out again in Germany. The
nobles had their own grievances; the Saxons were always ready to take
arms; the Church was roused because Henry dealt with ecclesiastical
property as if the Pope's original proposal had been allowed to stand.
The royal bailiffs acted in such a manner with the cathedrals that of
a house of prayer they made a den of thieves.

Henry's forces were worsted in battle and he had recourse to his
father's tactics, seeking in Italy, by personal dealings with the
Pope, to recover the moral prestige which he had lost in Germany. He
had a pretext in the death of the Countess Matilda (1115); for the
Papacy was claiming not only her allodial lands, which she might have
a right to bequeath, but also her imperial fiefs, which were not hers
to dispose of. Henry occupied the dominions of Matilda without
opposition. His presence in Italy caused Pascal still to refrain from
personal condemnation of the Emperor, and a year later a party
friendly to Henry opened the gates of Rome to him. Pascal fled to
Albano, and only returned to Rome on Henry's departure, a dying man
(January, 1118). His successor, Gelasius II, refused Henry's advances,
and the Emperor resorted to the old and discredited policy of setting
up an anti-Pope in the person of the Archbishop of Braga, in Portugal,
who took the name of Gregory VIII. Gelasius excommunicated Henry and
his Pope; but finding himself threatened in Rome, fled to Burgundy,
and died at Cluny a year after his election (January, 1119). So far
Henry's attempts to deal with the Pope had failed, and the publication
of the new Pope's excommunication in Germany made the opposition so
strong that Henry found it advisable to return.

[Sidenote: Calixtus II (1119-24)]

Gelasius' successor chosen at Cluny was Archbishop of Vienne, who took
the title of Calixtus II. He was the first secular priest who had
occupied the papal chair since Alexander II, and he was related to the
royal families of France and England. Thus he had a wider outlook than
the monks who preceded him, and the nobles would be likely to listen
to a man of their own rank. He had been the most uncompromising of all
Henry's opponents; but this was a guarantee to the Church that her
position and power would not again be placed in jeopardy, for events
were at length tending towards a conclusion of the weary strife. The
views of the reformers had gained general acceptance as the doctrine
of the Church. The obligation of clerical celibacy was acknowledged:
simony had much diminished; Henry was the only King in Western Europe
who still claimed to invest his prelates. Although it was some time
before all the great French feudatories yielded to the spirit of
reform, the French King himself had abandoned the practice of
investiture for those bishops who were under his control. He retained,
however, certain of his rights. The election could not take place
without his permission, the newly elected bishop took an oath of
fealty to the King, and during the vacancy of the see the revenues
were paid to the Crown. It was more important still that in England
the question of investiture had been settled by a compromise which
recognised the twofold nature of the episcopal office, and that this
compromise had received the sanction of the Pope. Henceforth it was
practically impossible for the Church to maintain the position of the
extreme reformers. When Pope Pascal was forced to grant the right of
investiture to the Emperor, Henry I of England, as Anselm complained
to Pascal, threatened to resume the practice. Already William I of
England had defined the limits of papal power in his dominions without
a protest from Rome, and Urban II had actually found himself obliged
to endow Roger of Sicily and his successors with the authority of a
papal legate within their own dominions. It was clear that the papal
authority could do little against a really strong lay ruler. Moreover,
the influence of the Church had greatly diminished. There was scarcely
a see or abbey to which, during the last forty years, there had not
been rival claimants: King and nobles alike had not only ceased to
increase the endowments of the Church, but had caught at almost every
opportunity of encroaching on them.

[Sidenote: Concordat of Worms.]

The accommodation was very gradual, for much suspicion of insincerity
on both sides had to be overcome. The first step was taken in October,
1119. After the failure of direct negotiations between Pope and
Emperor, a Council at Rheims, presided over by the Pope, renewed the
anathema against Henry and his party, but only consented to a modified
prohibition of investitures, since the office alone was mentioned and
all reference to the property of bishop or abbot was omitted. It was
two years before the next stage was reached, and meanwhile the
anti-Pope had fallen into the hands of Calixtus, and Henry was still
in difficulties in Germany. Finally, in October, 1121, the German
nobles brought about a conference of envoys from both sides at
Wurzburg, where in addition to an universal peace it was arranged that
the investiture question should be settled at a General Council to be
held in Germany under papal auspices. The Council met at Worms in
September, 1122, and the papal legates were armed with full powers to
act. The result was a Concordat subsequently ratified at the first
Council of the Lateran in March, 1123, which is reckoned as the ninth
General Council by the Roman Church. By this agreement the Emperor
gave up all claim to invest ecclesiastics with the ring and staff. In
return it was allowed by the Church that the election of prelates
should take place in presence of the Emperor's representatives, and
that in case of any dispute the Emperor should confirm the decision
arrived at by the Metropolitan and his suffragans. The Emperor on his
part undertook that the prelate elect, whether bishop or abbot, should
be invested with the regalia or temporalities pertaining to his office
by the sceptre, in Germany the investiture preceding the
ecclesiastical consecration, whereas in Burgundy and the kingdom of
Italy the consecration should come first.

[Sidenote: Results of struggle in Empire.]

We are naturally tempted to enquire who was the gainer in this long
struggle? Writers on both sides have claimed the victory. It is clear,
however, that neither side got all that it demanded. Considering the
all-embracing character of the papal claim, the limitation of its
pretensions might seem to carry a decided diminution of its position.
Calixtus' advisers strongly urged that all over the imperial lands the
consecration of prelates should precede the investiture of
temporalities by the lay power. But the German nobles would not budge.
In Burgundy and Italy conditions were different: in the former the
power of the Crown had been almost in abeyance; in Italy the bishops
had found themselves deserted by the Crown and had submitted to the
Pope. The Crown had therefore to acquiesce in a merely nominal control
over appointments in those lands. But in Germany the King perhaps
gained rather than lost by the Concordat. His right of influence in
the choice was definitely acknowledged, and by refusing the regalia he
could practically prevent the consecration of any one obnoxious to
him. The prelates of Germany, therefore, remained vassals of the
Crown.

[Sidenote: on Papacy.]

On the other hand, the Papacy had definitely shaken itself free from
imperial control. Henry III was the last Emperor who could impose his
nominee Papacy upon the Church as Pope; the protégés of his successors
are all classed among the anti-Popes. At the same time the papal
privilege of crowning the Emperor and the papal weapon of
excommunication were very real checks upon the German King; while the
success of those principles for which the Cluniac party had striven
established the theoretical claim of the Pope to be the moral guide,
and the part which he played in starting the Crusades put him in the
practical position of the leader of Christendom in any common
movement. It was no slight loss to the Emperor that he had been the
chief opponent of the Pope and the reformers, and that in the matter
of the Crusades he and his whole nation had stood ostentatiously
aloof.




CHAPTER IV

THE SECULAR CLERGY


[Sidenote: The work of the Church reformers.]

The great movement in favour of Church reform, which had emanated from
Cluny, had worked itself out along certain definite lines. It is
important to ask how far it had succeeded in achieving its objects. We
have seen that it was a movement of essentially monastic conception
aimed at the purification of the secular clergy. And we have seen that
the evil to be remedied had arisen from the imminent danger that the
Church would be laicised and feudalised. From the highest to the
lowest all ecclesiastical posts were at the disposition of laymen who
treated them as a species of feudal fief, so that the holders, even if
they were in Holy Orders (which was not always the case), regarded
their temporal rights and obligations as the first consideration and,
like all feudal tenants, tried to establish the right of hereditary
succession in their holdings. Thus the work of the reformers had been
of a double nature; it was not enough that they should aim at
exorcising the feudal spirit from the Church, at banishing the feudal
ideal from the minds of ecclesiastics: it was necessary to effect what
was indeed a revolution, and to shake the whole organisation of the
Church free from the trammels which close contact with the State had
laid upon it. It began as a reformation of morals; it developed into a
constitutional revolution. There was involved in the movement both an
interference with what might be distinguished as private rights and
also a readjustment of public relations. The reformers headed by the
Pope ultimately decided to concentrate their efforts on the latter.
Hence we may begin by enquiring how far they had succeeded in freeing
episcopal elections from lay control.

[Sidenote: Episcopal appointments.]

There were three several acts of the lay authority in connection with
the appointment of bishops to which the Church reformers took
exception. The King or, by usurpation from him, the great feudal lord
had acquired the right of nominating directly to the vacant see, to
the detriment, and even the exclusion, of the old electoral rights of
clergy and people; and while in some cases nobles nominated themselves
without any thought of taking Holy Orders, frequently they treated the
bishoprics under their control as appanages or endowments for the
younger members of their family. Then, before the consecration, the
bishop-nominate obtained investiture from the lay authority by the
symbolic gifts of a ring and a pastoral staff or cross, not only of
the lands and temporal possessions of the see, but also of the
jurisdiction which emanated from the episcopal office. Finally, the
prospective bishop took an oath to his lay lord, whether King or
other, which was not only an oath of fealty such as any subject might
be called upon to take, but was also an act of homage, and made him an
actual feudal vassal and his church a kind of fief.

[Sidenote: Right of election.]

The result of the long struggle was that in the matter of episcopal
appointments, speaking generally, the right of election was not
restored to clergy and people, in whom by primitive custom it had been
vested, but that the laity, with the possible exception of the
feudatories of the see, were banished altogether, the rural clergy
ceased to appear, and, after the analogy of the papal election by the
College of Cardinals, the canonical election of the bishop in every
diocese tends to be concentrated in the hands of the clergy of the
cathedral. It was a long time, however, before the rights of the
cathedral chapters were universally recognised. Henry I of England in
his Concordat with Anselm (1107) and the Emperor Henry V in the
Concordat of Worms (122) both promised freedom of election. Philip I
and Louis VI of France seem to have conceded the same right without
any formal agreement. But many of the great French feudal lords clung
to their power over the local bishoprics, and in Normandy, in Anjou,
and in some parts of the south nearly a century elapsed before the
duke or count surrendered his custom of nominating bishops directly.
But the freedom of election by the Canons of the cathedral, even when
it was conceded, was little more than nominal. In England, France, and
the Christian kingdoms of Spain no cathedral body could exercise its
right without the King's leave to elect, nor was any election complete
without the royal confirmation. By the Concordat of Worms elections
were to take place in the presence of the King or his commissioners.
By the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) English bishops must be
elected in the royal chapel. King John tried to bribe the Church over
to his side in the quarrel with the barons which preceded Magna Carta,
by conceding that elections should be free--that is, should take
place in the chapter-house of the cathedral; but even he reserved the
royal permission for the election to be held, and the _congé
d'élire_ in England and elsewhere was accompanied by the name of
the individual on whom the choice of the electoral body should fall.
It was not the rights of the electors but the all-pervading authority
of the Pope which was to prove the chief rival of royal influence in
the local Church.

[Sidenote: Investiture.]

The quarrel between Church and State had centred round the ceremony of
investiture, because in the eyes of the reformers the most scandalous
result of the feudalisation of the Church was the acceptance at the
hands of a layman of the spiritual symbols of ring and crozier. But as
Hugh of Fleury had acknowledged in his tract on "Royal Power and
Priestly Office," investiture there must be so long as ecclesiastics
held great temporal possessions. Here again some of the French nobles
clung to the old anomalous form of investiture, but otherwise the
example of the imperial lands, of the royal domain of France and of
England was generally followed, the gifts of ring and staff were
conceded to the Metropolitan, and where no special form of investiture
by the sceptre was retained it was confused with the ceremony of
homage. But in Germany and England investiture with the lands of the
see preceded consecration, so that while on the one hand it was not a
bishop who was being invested by a layman, on the other hand the
refusal of investiture would practically prevent the consecration of
any one obnoxious to the Crown.

[Sidenote: Homage and fealty.]

With regard to the feudal ceremony of homage a distinction came to be
drawn by writers on the Canon Law between homage and fealty, and
ecclesiastics were supposed to limit themselves to the obligations of
the latter, which were those of every subject. The ceremony was not
precisely the same as in the case of a lay noble being invested with a
fief; but in France, at any rate, the Crown never really abandoned its
claim to a feudal homage, and in any case ecclesiastics were expected
to fulfil their feudal obligations. Even Innocent III acknowledged
this in a decree (§43) of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), and in
interceding with Philip II of France on behalf of two bishops who had
been deprived of their temporal possessions for some neglect of
military duty, he argues that they were "ready to submit to the
judgment of your Court, as is customary in such matters."

[Sidenote: Regale.]

Arising out of these feudal relations certain rights over the
possessions of ecclesiastics and ecclesiastical bodies were claimed by
the Crown, which were the cause of serious oppression. According to
the Canon Law, the bishop was only the usufructuary of the lands and
revenues belonging to his see. The lands and revenues belonged to the
Church. But inasmuch as these had been originally in most cases the
gift of the Crown, the King claimed to deal with them in the method
applied to feudal holdings. By the right of _regale_, on the
vacancy of a see through death, resignation, or deprivation of the
bishop, the royal officers took possession of the temporalities, that
is, the land and revenues, and administered them for the profit of the
Crown so long as the see was vacant. The Crown did not hesitate to use
the episcopal patronage and to fill up vacant canonries and benefices
with its own followers, and it often took the opportunity to levy upon
the inhabitants of the diocese a special tax--_tallagium_,
_tallage_, or _taille_--which a landlord had a right of
exacting from his unfree tenants. It was to the interest of the Crown
to prolong a vacancy, and attempts to limit the exercise of the right
were of little practical effect.

[Sidenote: Right of spoils.]

An even more extraordinary claim was to the right of spoils (_jus
spolii_ or _exuviarium_). The canonical law forbidding the
bishop to deal by will with the property attached to his see, was
interpreted as applying to everything which he had not inherited. Thus
the furniture of his house and the money in his chest were claimed as
of right by the canons of his cathedral, but were often plundered by
the crowd of the city or by the local nobles. These lawless
proceedings provoked the interference of the royal officers, who
succeeded in most cases in establishing the right of the Crown to all
movables that the bishop left. The earliest notice of this royal claim
in Germany is found in the reign of Henry V. It was in full use under
Frederick I. William II is probably responsible for introducing both
the _regale_ and the _jus spolii_ from Normandy into
England. In France these were claimed by the feudal nobles as well as
by the King. Bitter were the complaints made by the Church against the
exercise of both rights. Kings and nobles clung to the _regale_
as long as they could, for it meant local influence as well as
revenue. In most cases, however, the right of spoils had been
surrendered before the thirteenth century. It is to be remembered that
ecclesiastics themselves exercised this right, bishops, for example,
claiming the possessions of the canons and the parish priests in their
dioceses. The Popes in relaxation of the Canon Law gave to certain
bishops the right of leaving their personal property by will, and the
canons also are found encouraging their bishop to make a will.

[Sidenote: Claims of the Clergy.]

As a set-off against these claims of the Crown upon the Church, the
clergy also advanced certain claims. These touched the two important
matters of taxation and jurisdiction. The Church claimed for her
members that they should not be liable to pay the taxes raised by the
secular authorities, nor should they have causes to which any
ecclesiastic was a party tried in the secular courts.

[Sidenote: Immunity from lay taxation.]

In seeking freedom from lay taxation the Church did not ask that her
members should escape their feudal obligations, nor even that they
should contribute nothing to the exigencies of the State. The desire
was merely that the clergy should be free from oppression and that the
Church should be so far as possible self-governing. Thus Alexander III
decreed in the third Lateran Council (1179), that for relieving the
needs of the community, everything contributed by the Church to
supplement the contributions of the laity should be given without
compulsion on the recognition of its necessity or utility by the
bishop and the clergy. Innocent III, in the fourth Lateran Council
(1215), provided a further safeguard against lay impositions in
demanding the permission of the Pope for any such levy. This does not
mean that the clergy escaped taxation at the hands of the State; it
merely means that while the Popes themselves heavily taxed them for
purposes which it was often difficult to describe as religious, the
price paid by the Crown for leave to tax the clergy was that a large
portion of the money should find its way to Rome.

[Sidenote: Tithes from the laity.]

The clergy were not content with this merely negative position.
Besides the right of self-taxation, they claimed that the laity should
contribute to the needs of the Church. The chief permanent source of
such contribution was the tithe, both the lesser tithes on smaller
animals, fruits, and vegetables, and the greater tithes on corn, wine,
and the larger animals. The Church also claimed tithes of revenues of
every kind, even from such divers classes as traders, soldiers,
beggars, and abandoned women. Much of the regular tithe had fallen
into the hands of laymen by gift from Kings to feudal tenants, or from
bishops to nobles and others, in return for military protection. These
alienated tithes Gregory VII tried to recover; but his need for the
help of the nobles against the Emperor forced him to stay his hand.
The third Lateran Council (1179) forbade, on pain of peril to the
soul, the transfer of tithes from one layman to another, and deprived
of Christian burial any one who, apparently having received such a
transfer, should not have made it over to the Church. This was a
definite claim for tithes as a right of which the Church had only been
deprived by some wrongful act. But in the very next year (1180)
Frederick I, at the Diet of Gelnhausen, declared that the alienation
of tithes as feudal fiefs to defenders of the Church was perfectly
legitimate. Religious scruples, however, seem to have caused the
surrender of tithes by many lay impropriators, especially to
monasteries.

[Sidenote: Bequests.]

There were many other sources of wealth to the Church. An enormous
quantity of property was bequeathed to pious uses by testators. The
attendance of the clergy at the death-bed gave them an opportunity of
which they were not slow to make use. The bodies of those who died
intestate, as of those unconfessed, were denied burial in consecrated
ground; all questions concerning wills were heard in the
ecclesiastical courts. The civil power attempted to check the freedom
of death-bed bequest, especially in Germany, where it was held that a
valid will could only be made by one who was still well enough to walk
unsupported. Another common source of revenue came from purchases or
mortgages or other arrangements made with crusaders, in which
advantage was taken of the haste of the lay men to raise funds for
their expedition.

[Sidenote: Wealth of the Church.]

From these and other sources the wealth which poured in upon the
Church was enormous. Individual gifts in money or in kind as
thank-offerings on all sorts of occasions reached no small of the
total; while no religious ceremony, from baptism to extreme unction
and burial, could be carried out apart from the payment of an
appropriate fee. The clergy constantly complained of spoliation, and
no doubt individuals suffered much. The very laymen who, with the
title of advocates, undertook to defend a cathedral or a monastery
were often its worst robbers. But the endowments and revenues of the
Church were so extensive as to raise in the minds of many reformers
the question whether they were not largely responsible for her
corruptions.

[Sidenote: Immunity from lay jurisdiction.]

The clergy also sought freedom from the jurisdiction of the secular
courts; in other words, the Church claimed exclusive cognisance in her
own tribunals of all matters concerning those in Holy Orders. The
_Decretiun_ of Gratian--the text-book of Canon Law--laid it down
that in civil matters the clergy were to be brought before a civil
judge, but that a criminal charge against a clerk must be heard before
the bishop. Urban II, however, declares that all clergy should be
subject to the bishop alone, and the Synod of Nimes (1096), at which
he presided, stigmatises it as sacrilege to hale clerks or monks
before a secular court. Alexander III (1179) threatens to
excommunicate any layman guilty of this offence; while Innocent III
points out that a clerk is not even at liberty to waive the right of
trial in an ecclesiastical court in a matter between him and a layman,
because the spiritual jurisdiction is not a matter personal to
himself, but belongs to the whole clerical body. Finally Frederick II,
on his coronation at Rome in 1220, forbade any one to dare to indict
an ecclesiastic on either a civil or a criminal charge before a
secular tribunal. But meanwhile the frequent perpetration of violent
crimes by those who wore the tonsure made it imperative in the
interests of social order that the Church should not be allowed to
defend these criminals in order to save her own interests.

The fiercest struggle took place in England. Henry II did not deny the
right of the Church to jurisdiction over her members; but he demanded
that clerks found guilty of grave crime should be unfrocked by the
ecclesiastical court, and that then, being no longer clerks, they
should be handed over to the royal officers, by whom they should be
punished according to their deserts. Archbishop Thomas Becket answered
that it was contrary to justice and the Canon Law that a man should be
punished twice for the same offence; that the punishment by the Church
involved the offender's damnation and was therefore quite adequate;
and that finally he himself was officially bound to defend the
liberties of the Church even to the death. Henry II attempted to solve
the difficulty by issuing the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164), the
third clause of which decreed that the royal officer should determine
whether any matter in which a clerk was concerned should be tried in
the secular or the ecclesiastical court, and that even if it went to
the latter, the King's officer should be present at the hearing. As
the price, however, of his reconciliation with the Papacy after
Becket's death, Henry was obliged to withdraw the Constitutions.

The position of the Church on this question was clearly stated by Pope
Celestine III in 1192. If a clerk had been lawfully convicted of
theft, homicide, perjury, or any capital crime, he should be degraded
by the ecclesiastical judge; for the next offence he should be
punished by excommunication, and for the next by anathema; then, since
the Church could do no more, for any subsequent offence he might be
handed over to the secular power to be punished by exile or in any
other lawful manner. This, of course, was a direct licence to the
ill-disposed clergy to commit more crimes than were allowable for a
layman; but the laity had to proceed cautiously in opposing it. In
1219 Philip II of France demanded that a clerk who had been degraded
should not be protected by the Church from seizure outside
ecclesiastical precincts by the royal officers with a view to his
trial in a secular court. But here again, both at his coronation as
Emperor in 1220 and again in the code of laws drawn up for his kingdom
of Sicily in 1231, Frederick II confirmed the privileges of the Church
in the matter of jurisdiction. On the latter occasion, however, he did
reserve cases of high treason for the royal court. Almost the only
immediate effect of these protests on the part of the State was that
Popes and Councils enjoined on the ecclesiastical courts greater
severity of treatment of offenders, even to the extent of perpetual
imprisonment in the case of those whom the lay tribunals would have
condemned to death.

[Sidenote: Increase of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.]

But this exclusive jurisdiction in all matters that concerned her own
members was only a part of the authority claimed and exercised by the
Church in the sphere of justice. Synods of the clergy did not hesitate
to take part in the enforcement of civil law and order, and threatened
with severe ecclesiastical penalties all who did not observe the Truce
of God, or who were guilty of piracy, incendiarism, or false coining.
At one time they attempted thus to suppress usury and trial by ordeal,
which at other times they allowed. They even legislated against
tournaments and against the use of certain deadly weapons in battle by
one Christian nation against another. But apart from the special
circumstances which called out and so justified the legislation, the
Church claimed at all times jurisdiction over certain classes of lay
persons and in certain categories of cases. Thus all persons needing
protection, such as widows, minors, and orphans, came under the
cognisance of the ecclesiastical courts, and to these the Popes added
Crusaders. Furthermore, all cases which could be regarded as in any
way involving a possible breach of faith were also claimed as
belonging to the jurisdiction of the Church, and these included
everything concerning oaths, marriages, and wills. Naturally the
Church had cognisance of all cases of sacrilege and heresy. These
excuses for interference in the transactions of daily life were
susceptible of almost indefinite extension, especially since the
Church asserted a right to hear cases of all sorts in her courts on
appeal on a plea that civil justice had failed. Even so stout a
champion of the Church as St. Bernard complains bitterly that all this
participation in worldly matters tends to stand between the clergy and
their proper duties. The secular powers constantly protested. Even
when Alfonso X in his legal code allowed that all suits arising from
sins should go to ecclesiastical courts, the Cortes of Castile
constantly protested. The chief attempts to check the growth of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction were made in France. Even under Louis IX
the barons combined to resist the encroachments of the Church, and
resolved that "no clerk or layman should in future indict any one
before an ecclesiastical judge except for heresy, marriage, or usury,
on pain of loss of possessions and mutilation of a limb, in order
that," they add with a justifiable touch of malice, "our jurisdiction
may be revived, and they [the clergy] who have hitherto been enriched
by our pauperisation may be reduced to the condition of the primitive
Church, and living the contemplative life they may, as is seemly, show
to us who spend an active life miracles which for a long time have
disappeared from the world."

[Sidenote: Simony.]

The result, then, of the efforts of the Church reformers to free the
Church from the State had been an enormous increase in the power of
the Church. But these efforts were in the beginning only a means to an
end, and that end was the purification of the Church itself. We have,
therefore, to ask how far the attempts to get rid of simony and to
enforce the celibacy of the clergy had met with permanent success.
Before the movement in favour of reform the traffic in churches and
Church property was indulged in by laity and clergy alike. Not only
Kings and nobles but bishops and abbots received payments from those
who accepted ecclesiastical preferment at their hands, and were by no
means always careful that ecclesiastical offices were acquired by
those in Holy Orders. Church property, in fact, was treated by those
who represented the original donors as if it were the private property
of the patron. The reform movement of the eleventh century, at any
rate, succeeded in making a distinction between the right of ownership
and the right of presentation, and in limiting the power of the patron
to the latter. Beyond this nothing much was permanently effected in
checking the traffic in things ecclesiastical. Preferment continued to
be used as patronage: offices and dignities in the Church were given
to children, and preferments were accumulated upon individuals until
pluralities became a standing grievance. Councils and Popes still
thundered against simony, but with the extending authority of Rome the
staff of the papal curia was increased, and the traffic in things
ecclesiastical at Rome was notorious.

[Sidenote: Clerical marriage.]

The efforts of the reformers in checking clerical marriage had not
been much more successful. The law now stood as follows: the first two
Lateran Councils (1123, 1139) prohibited matrimony to priests,
deacons, and sub-deacons; but to those only in one of the three minor
orders of the Church it was still allowed, although Alexander III
ultimately decreed that marriage should cause them to forfeit their
benefice. It was some time, however, before these decrees could be
enforced, and even the Popes found themselves compelled to deal
leniently with offending clergy. Thus Pascal II allowed to Archbishop
Anselm that a married priest not only might, but must, if applied to,
minister to a dying person. Attempts were made to forbid ordination to
the sons of priests, at least as secular clergy, but such regulations
were constantly relaxed or ignored. Pascal II actually allowed that in
Spain, where clerical marriage had been lawful, the children should be
eligible for all secular and ecclesiastical preferment. In the remoter
countries of Europe--the Scandinavian lands, Bohemia, Hungary,
Poland--the decrees against clerical marriage were not accepted until
far into the thirteenth century. Even in part of Germany, notably the
diocese of Liege, the clergy continued openly to marry until the same
century. But even in countries where the principle was nominally
accepted it triumphed at the expense of morality. For example, in
England the decree was published in Council after Council throughout
the twelfth century and was undoubtedly accepted as the law. But in
1129, after the death of Anselm, who had opposed the expedient, Henry
I imprisoned the "house-keepers" of the clergy in London in order to
obtain a sum of money by their release. Furthermore, both in England
and elsewhere, bishops finding it impossible to enforce the decree,
frankly licensed the breach of it by individual clergy in return for
an annual payment. It is interesting to note that several important
writers of the age speak with studied moderation on this question. The
great lawyer Gratian admits that in the earlier period of the Church
marriage was allowed to the clergy. The Parisian theologian, Peter
Comestor, publicly taught that the enforcement of the vow of celibacy
on the clergy was a deliberate snare of the devil. The English
historians, Henry of Huntingdon, Matthew Paris, and Thomas of
Walsingham, speak with disapproval of the attempts to enforce it, and
even St. Thomas Aquinas holds that the celibacy of the secular clergy
was a matter of merely human regulation. Thus the protest of the
reformers of the eleventh century in favour of purity of life among
the clergy had met with the smallest possible success, but like all
such protests, it helped to keep alive the idea of a higher standard
of personal and official life until such time as secular circumstances
were more favourable.




CHAPTER V

CANONS AND MONKS


[Sidenote: Secular canons.]

So far, in speaking of the attempted purification of the Church in the
eleventh century, we have dealt merely with the bishops and the
parochial clergy. But a movement which emanated from the monasteries
had a message also for those ecclesiastics who were gathered into
corporate bodies, and whom we have learnt to distinguish respectively
as canons and monks. Of these the canons were reckoned among the
secular clergy; for although they were supposed to live a common life
according to a certain rule, their duties were parochial, and they
were not bound for life to the community of which they were members.
The body of canons was called a chapter, and of chapters there were
two kinds--the cathedral chapter, whose members served the Mother
Church of the diocese, and, as we have seen, ultimately obtained the
nominal right of electing the bishop; and the collegiate chapter,
generally, though not always, to be found in towns which had no
cathedral, the members of which, like those of a modern clergy-house,
served the church or churches of the town. In the eighth century these
communities were subjected to a rule drawn up by Chrodegang, Bishop of
Metz, in accordance with which they were required to sleep in a common
dormitory, feed at a common table, and assimilate themselves as far as
possible to monks. But in the two succeeding centuries there was no
class of clergy which fell so far from the ideal as the capitular
clergy. They were important and they were wealthy, for the cathedral
chapters claimed to share with the bishop in the administration of the
diocese, and both kinds of chapters owned extensive lands. In some of
the more important chapters great feudal nobles had obtained for
themselves the titular offices; in nearly all such bodies some, if not
most or even all, of the canonries came to be reserved for younger
members of the noble families. The common property was divided into
shares, between the bishop and the body of the canons and between the
individual canons: many of the canons employed vicars to do their
clerical duty, and some even lived on the estates of the capitular
body, leading the existence of a lay noble. Even those who remained on
the spot had houses of their own round the cloister, where they lived
with their wives and children, using the common refectory only for an
occasional festival.

[Sidenote: Canons Regular.]

Thus no body of ecclesiastics stood in need of thorough reform more
than the capitular clergy, and no class proved so hard to deal with.
Attempts to substitute Cluniac monks for canons roused the opposition
of the whole body of secular clergy. More successful to a small degree
was the plan of Bishop Ivo of Chartres and others to revive among the
capitular bodies the rule of common life. But it was difficult to pour
new wine into old bottles, and the reformers found it more profitable
to leave the old capitular bodies severely alone, and to devote their
efforts to the foundation of new communities. To these were applied
from the very first a new rule for which its advocates claimed the
authority of St. Augustine. It laid upon the members vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience, and placed them under an abbot elected by the
community of canons. Such was the origin of the Augustinian or Austin
Canons, who came to be distinguished as Regular Canons, and are to be
reckoned with monastic bodies, in comparison with the old cathedral
and collegiate chapters, who were henceforth known as Secular Canons.
These bodies of clergy, who combined parochial duties with what was
practically a monastic life, became exceedingly popular; and by
degrees not only were Secular Canons of collegiate churches, and even
of some cathedrals, transformed into Regular Canons, but even some
monastic houses were handed over to them. Instead of existing as
isolated bodies, like the old Benedictines, they took the Cluniac
model of organisation and formed congregations of houses grouped round
some one or other of those which formed models for the rest. Of these
congregations of Regular Canons the most celebrated were those of the
Victorines and the Premonstratensians.

[Sidenote: Victorines.]

The abbey of St. Victor at Paris was founded in 1113 by William of
Champeaux, afterwards Bishop of Chalons. The Order came to consist of
about forty houses, and its members strove to keep the Augustinian
ideal of a parochial and monastic life. But the chief fame of the
abbey itself comes from its scholastic work, and it became known both
as the stronghold of a somewhat rigid orthodoxy and as the home of a
mystical theology which was developed among its own teachers.

[Sidenote: Premonstratensians.]

But by far the most important congregation of Canons Regular was that
of the Premonstratensians. Their founder, Norbert, a German of noble
birth, in response to a sudden conversion, gave up several canonries
of the older kind with which he was endowed; but finding that a
prophet has no honour in his own country, he preached in France with
astonishing success, and ultimately, under the patronage of the Bishop
of Laon in 1120, he settled with a few companions in a waste place in
a forest, where he established a community of Regular Canons and gave
to the spot the name of _Prémontré--pratum monstratum--_the
meadow which had been pointed out to him by an angel. Almost from its
foundation the Premonstratensian Order admitted women as well as men,
and at first the two sexes lived in separate houses planted side by
side. The Order also began the idea of affiliating to itself, under
the form of a third class, influential laymen who would help in its
work. The Premonstratensian houses assimilated themselves to monastic
communities more than did the Victorines: their work was missionary
rather than parochial. The Order spread with great rapidity not only
in Western Europe, but, even in its founder's lifetime, to Syria and
Palestine, and for purposes of administration it came to be divided
into thirty provinces.

[Sidenote: St. Norbert in Germany.]

Meanwhile Norbert had come under the notice of the Emperor Lothair II,
who forced him into the archbishopric of Magdeburg. Here he
substituted Premonstratensians in a collegiate chapter for canons of
the older kind, and he eagerly backed up Lothair's policy of extending
German influence upon the north-eastern frontier by planting
Premonstratensian houses as missionary centres and by founding new
bishoprics. Norbert, in fact became Lothair's chief adviser and was an
European influence second only to that of St. Bernard in all the
questions of the day.

[Sidenote: Knights Templars.]

It was upon the model of the Canons Regular that the great military
Orders of the religious were organised. In the year 1118 a Burgundian
knight, Hugh de Payens, with eight other knights, founded at Jerusalem
an association for the protection of distressed pilgrims in Palestine.
From their residence near Solomon's Temple they came to be known as
the Knights of the Temple. They remained a small and poor body until
St. Bernard who was nephew to one of the knights, took them under his
patronage and drew up for them a code of regulations which obtained
the sanction of Honorius II at the Council of Troyes in 1128. From
that moment the prosperity of the Templars was assured. Their numbers
increased, and lands and other endowments were showered upon them in
all parts of Europe. As monks they were under the triple vow of
poverty, chastity, and obedience, and the regulations of the Order
which governed their daily life were among the most severe. As knights
it was their duty to maintain war against the Saracens. For
administrative purposes the possessions of the Order were grouped in
ten provinces, each province being further subdivided into
preceptories or commanderies, and each of these into still smaller
units. Each division and subdivision had its own periodical chapter of
members for settling its concerns, and at the head of the whole Order
stood the Grand Master with a staff of officers who formed the general
chapter and acted as a restraint upon the conduct of their head. In
addition to the knights the Order contained chaplains for the
ecclesiastical duties, and serving brethren of humble birth to help
the knights in warfare. Their possessions in Western Europe were used
as recruiting-grounds for their forces in the East; but it was only in
towns of some importance that they erected churches on the model of
the Holy Sepulchre in connection with their houses.

[Sidenote: Knights Hospitallers.]

The Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem was a reorganisation
of a hospital dedicated to St. John the Baptist. This had been erected
for poor pilgrims by the merchants of Amalfi before the Crusades
began. But it remained merely a charitable brotherhood living under a
monastic rule and attracting both men and endowments, until the
example of the Templars caused the then master, Raymond du Puy, to
obtain papal sanction some time before 1130 for a rule which added
military duties without superseding the original object of the Order.
Their possessions were divided into eight provinces with subdivisions
of grand priories and commanderies, and the other administrative
arrangements differed in little, except occasionally in name, from
those of the Templars.

[Sidenote: Privileges of the military Orders.]

Both these Orders obtained not only extensive possessions from the
pious, but wide privileges from the Pope. They were subject to the
spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope alone; they could consecrate
churches and cemeteries on their own lands without any interference of
the local clergy; they could hold divine service everywhere.
Interdicts and excommunications had no terrors or even inconveniences
for them. They were free from payment of tithes and other imposts
levied on the clergy. There is no doubt that but for these Orders the
Crusaders would have fared far worse than they did. The Templars and
Hospitallers were the one really reliable element in the crusading
forces. This is no very high praise, and their effectiveness was
largely discounted by their bitter quarrels with each other and with
the local authorities, both secular and ecclesiastical, alike in the
east and the west. They scandalously abused the extensive privileges
accorded to them, by such acts as the administration of the Sacrament
to excommunicated persons, to whom they would also give Christian
burial. In 1179, at the second Lateran Council, Alexander III was
moved by the universal complaints to denounce their irresponsible
defiance of all ecclesiastical law, and subsequent Popes were obliged
to speak with equal vigour. After the destruction of the Latin power
in Palestine (1291) the Hospitallers transferred their head-quarters
to Cyprus till 1309, then to Rhodes, and finally to Malta. The
Templars abandoned their _raison d'être_, retired to their
possessions in the west, and placed their head-quarters at Paris,
where they acted as the bankers of the French King. Their wealth
provoked jealousy: they were accused of numberless and nameless
crimes, and their enemies brought about their fall, first in France,
then in England, and finally the abolition of the Order by papal
decree in 1313. Such of their wealth as escaped the hands of the lay
authorities went to swell the possessions of the Hospitallers.

[Sidenote: Teutonic Knights.]

There were many other Orders of soldier-monks besides these two. The
best known are the Teutonic Knights, who originated during the Third
Crusade at the siege of Acre (1190) in an association of North German
Crusaders for the care of the sick and wounded. The Knights of the
German Hospital of St. Mary the Virgin at Jerusalem--for such was
their full title--gained powerful influence in Palestine; their Order
was confirmed by Pope Celestine III (1191-8), and in 1220 Honorius III
gave them the same privileges as were enjoyed by the Hospitallers and
Templars. Their organisation was similar to that of the older Orders.
Their prosperity was chiefly due to the third Grand Master, Herman von
Salza, the good genius of the Emperor Frederick II, and a great power
in Europe. Under him the Order transferred itself to the shores of the
Baltic, where it carried on a crusade against the heathen Prussians,
and here it united in 1237 with another knightly Order, the Brethren
of the Sword, which had been founded in 1202 by the Bishop of Livonia
for similar work against the heathen inhabitants of that country.

[Sidenote: Other military Orders.]

The Knights of the Hospital of St. Thomas of Acre was a small English
Order named after Thomas Becket and founded in the thirteenth century.
They, together with those already mentioned as founded for work in
Palestine, belonged to the Canons Regular. For convenience, however,
mention should be made here of the great Spanish Orders which were
affiliated to the Cistercian monks. These were founded in imitation of
the Templars and Hospitallers for similar work against the Saracens of
the Peninsula. The Order of Calatrava, founded by a Cistercian abbot
when that city was threatened by the Saracens in 1158, and the Order
of St. Julian, founded about the same time, which ultimately took its
name from the captured fortress of Alcantara, were amenable to the
complete monastic rule; while the Portuguese Order of Evora or Avisa,
founded a few years later, was assimilated rather to the lay brethren
of the Cistercians, and its members could marry and hold property.
There was one of the Spanish Orders, however, which was not connected
with the Cistercians. The Knights of St. James of Compostella
originated in 1161 for the protection of pilgrims to the shrine of
Compostella. Their rule was confirmed by Alexander III in 1175, and
the Order of Santiago became the most famous of the military Orders in
the Peninsula.

[Sidenote: New Monastic Orders.]

The revival and reorganisation of the common life among cathedral and
collegiate bodies roused the jealousy of the monastic houses. The
absolute superiority of the monastic life over any other was an
article of faith to which the obvious interests of the monks could
allow no qualification; and the close imitation of the monastic model
adopted by the Regular Canons was sufficient proof that the Church
generally acquiesced in this view. The great reform movement of the
eleventh century had emanated from the monks of Cluny; but just as the
degradation of the monastic ideal by the Benedictines had called into
existence the Order of Cluny with its reformed Benedictine rule, so
now the failure of the Cluniacs to live up to the expectations and to
minister to the needs of the most fervent religious spirits caused the
foundation of a number of new Orders. In each such case the founder
and his first followers strove, by the austerities of their personal
lives and by the severity of the rule which they enjoined, to embody
and to maintain at the highest level that ideal of contemplative
asceticism which was the object of the monastic life. Such was the
origin of the Order of Grammont (1074) and of Fontevraud (1094) and of
the better known Orders of the Carthusians (1084) and the Cistercians
(1098).

[Sidenote: Grammont.]

Thus Stephen, the founder of the Order of Grammont, was the son of a
noble of Auvergne, who, in the course of a journey in Calabria, was so
impressed by the life or the hermits with which the mountainous
districts abounded, that he resolved to reproduce it, and lived for
fifty years near Limoges, subjecting himself to such rigorous
devotional exercises that his knees became quite hard and his nose
permanently bent! Gregory VII sanctioned the formation of an Order,
but Stephen and his first followers called themselves simply _boni
homines_. After his death the monastery was removed to Grammont
close by, and a severe rule continued to be practised; but the
management of the concerns of the house was in the hands, not of the
monks, but of lay brethren, who began even to interfere in spiritual
matters, and the Order ceased to spread.

[Sidenote: Carthusians.]

The founder of the Carthusians, Bruno, a native of Koln, but master of
the Cathedral school at Rheims, also took the eremitic life as his
model for the individual. To this end he planted his monastery near
Grenoble, in the wild solitude of the Chartreuse, which gave its name
to the whole Order and to each individual house. In addition to a very
rigorous form of asceticism his rule imposed on the members an almost
perpetual silence. The centre of the life of the Carthusian monk was
not the cloister, but the cell which to each individual was, except on
Sundays and festivals, at the same time chapel, dormitory, refectory,
and study. The Carthusian rule has been described as "Cenobitism
reduced to its simplest expression"; but despite the growing wealth of
the Order, the rigour of the life was well maintained, and of all the
monastic bodies it was the least subjected to criticism and satire.

[Sidenote: Fontevraud.]

A different type of founder is represented by Robert of Arbrissel, in
Brittany, who, although he attracted disciples by the severity of his
life as a hermit, was really a great popular preacher, whose words
soon came to be attested by miracles. He was especially effective in
dealing with fallen women, and the monastery which he established at
Fontevraud, in the diocese of Poitiers, was a double house, men and
women living in two adjacent cloisters; but the monks were little more
than the chaplains and the managers of the monastic revenues, and at
the head of the whole house and Order the founder placed an Abbess as
his successor. The rule of this Order imposed on the female members
absolute silence except in the chapter-house.

[Sidenote: Cluniac Congregation.]

The foundation of these Orders, greater or less, did not exhaust the
impetus in favour of monasticism. Single houses and smaller Orders
were founded during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of which
many attained a merely local importance. The common feature of the
great Orders was that each of them formed a Congregation, that is to
say, an aggregate of numerous houses scattered over many lands, but
following the same rule and acknowledging some sort of allegiance to
the original home of the Order. The invention of this model was due to
Cluny, although even among the Cluniacs the organisation of the
Congregation, with its system of visiting inspectors who reported on
the condition of the monasteries to an annual Chapter-General meeting
at Cluny, was not completed until the thirteenth century. From the
first, however, the Abbot of Cluny was a despot; with the exception of
the heads of some monasteries which became affiliated to the Order he
was the only abbot, the ruler of the Cluniac house being merely a
prior. All the early abbots were men of mark, who were afterwards
canonised by the Church. The fourth abbot refused the Papacy; but
Gregory VII, Urban II, and Pascal II were all Cluniac monks. The real
greatness of the Order was due to its fifth and sixth abbots, Odilo
who ruled from 994 to 1049, and Hugh who held the reins of office for
an even longer period (1049-1109); while the fame of the Order
culminated under Peter the Venerable, the contemporary of St. Bernard.

[Sidenote: Its decay.]

But the history of the abbot who came between Hugh and Peter shows the
strange vicissitudes to which even the greatest monasteries might be
subjected. Pontius was godson of Pope Pascal II, who sent to the newly
elected abbot his own dalmatic. Calixtus II visited Cluny, and while
reaffirming the privileges granted by his predecessors, such as the
freedom of Cluniac houses from visitation by the local bishop, he made
the Abbot of Cluny _ex officio_ a Cardinal of the Roman Church,
and allowed that when the rest of the land was under an interdict the
monks of Cluny might celebrate Mass within the closed doors of their
chapels. But as a consequence of these distinctions Pontius' conduct
became so unbearable as to cause loud complaints from ecclesiastics of
every rank. Ultimately the Pope intervened and persuaded Pontius to
resign the abbacy and to make a pilgrimage to Palestine. Meanwhile
another abbot was appointed. But Pontius returned, gathered an armed
band, and got forcible possession of Cluny, which he proceeded to
despoil. Again the Pope, Honorius II, interfered, and Pontius was
disposed of.

[Sidenote: Criticism of St. Bernard.]

But such an episode was only too characteristic of the decay which
seemed inevitably to fall on each of the monastic Orders. The wealth
and privileges of Cluny made its failure all the more conspicuous. A
few years after the expulsion of Pontius, St. Bernard wrote to the
Abbot of the Cluniac house of St. Thierry a so-called apology, which,
while professing a great regard for the Cluniacs Order and pretending
to criticise the deficiencies of his own Cistercians, is in reality a
scathing attack upon the lapse of the former from the Benedictine
rule. He attacks their neglect of manual work and of the rule of
silence; their elaborate cookery and nice taste in wines; their
interest in the cut and material of their clothes and the luxury of
their bed coverlets: the extravagance of the furniture in their
chapels, and even the grotesque architecture of their buildings. He
especially censures the magnificent state in which the abbots live and
with which they travel about, and he declares himself emphatically
against that exemption of monasteries from episcopal control which was
one of the most prized privileges of the Cluniac Order. Something may
perhaps be allowed for exaggeration in this attack; but that there was
no serious overstatement is clear from the letters written some years
later by Peter the Venerable to St. Bernard, in answer to the
accusations made by the Cistercians in general. He justifies the
departure from the strict Benedictine rule partly on the ground of its
severity, partly because of its unsuitability to the climate; but his
defence clearly shows how far, even under so admirable a ruler, the
Cluniacs had fallen away from the monastic ideal.

[Sidenote: Cistercians.]

The Cistercian Order, no less than the Orders already mentioned, owed
its origin to the desire to revive the primitive monastic rule from
which the Cluniacs had fallen away. The wonderful success which it met
with made it the chief rival of that Order. The parent monastery of
Citeaux, near Dijon, was founded by Robert of Molesme in 1098 under
the patronage of the Duke of Burgundy. But the monks kept the rule of
St. Benedict in the strictest manner, and their numbers remained
small. In 1113, however, they were joined by the youthful Bernard, the
son of a Burgundian knight, together with about thirty friends of like
mind, whom he had already collected with a view to the cloister life.
At once expansion became not only possible but necessary, and the
abbot of the day, Stephen Harding, by birth an Englishman from
Sherborne in Dorsetshire, sent out four colonies in succession, which
founded the abbeys of La Ferte (1113), Pontigny (1114), Clairvaux and
Morimond (1115). The first general chapter of the Order was held in
1116: the scheme of organisation drawn up by Stephen Harding was
embodied in _Carta Caritatis_, the Charter of Love, and received
the papal sanction in 1119. By the middle of the century (1151) more
than five hundred monasteries were represented at the general chapter,
and despite the resolution to admit no more houses, the number
continued to increase until the whole Order must have contained
upwards of two thousand.

[Sidenote: Mode of life.]

The entire organisation of the Cistercian Order made it a strong
contrast to the Cluniacs, both in the mode of life of its members and
in the method of government. The Cluniacs had become wealthy and
luxurious: their black dress, the symbol of humility, had become
rather a mark of hypocrisy. In order to guard against these snares the
Cistercians, to the wrath of the other monastic Orders, adopted a
white habit indicative of the joy which should attend devotion to
God's service. Their monasteries, all dedicated to the Blessed Virgin
Mary, were built in lonely places, where they would have no
opportunity to engage in parochial work. This indeed was strictly
forbidden them as detracting from the contemplative life which should
be the ideal of the Cistercian. For the same reason they were
forbidden to accept gifts of churches or tithes. The monastic
buildings, including the chapel, were to be of the simplest
description, without paintings, sculpture, or stained glass; and the
ritual used at the services was in keeping with this bareness. The
arrangements of the refectory and the dormitory were equally meagre.
Hard manual work, strict silence, and one daily meal gave the inmates
every opportunity of conquering their bodily appetites.

[Sidenote: Organisation.]

The method of government adopted for the Cistercian Order is also a
contrast by imitation of the Cluniac arrangements. It was an essential
point that a Cistercian house should be subject to the bishop of the
diocese in which it was situated. The episcopal leave was asked before
a house was founded, and a Cistercian abbot took an oath of obedience
to the local bishop. The actual organisation of the whole Order may be
described as aristocratic in contrast with the despotism of the Abbot
of Cluny. The Abbot of Citeaux was subject to the visitation and
correction of the abbots of the four daughter houses mentioned above,
while he in turn visited them; and each of them kept a similar
surveillance over the houses which had sprung from their houses. In
addition to this scheme of inspection, an annual general chapter met
at Citeaux. The abbots of all the houses in France, Germany, and Italy
were expected to appear every year; but from remoter lands attendance
was demanded only once in three, four, five, or even seven years.

[Sidenote: Decay.]

The Cistercians certainly wrested the lead of the monastic world from
Cluny, and until the advent of the Friars no other Order rivalled them
in popularity. But no more than any other Order were they exempt from
the evils of popularity. The very deserts in which they placed
themselves for protection, and the agricultural work with which they
occupied their hands, brought them the corrupting wealth; in England
they were the owners of the largest flocks of sheep which produced the
raw material for the staple trade of the country. They accepted
ecclesiastical dignities; they became luxurious and magnificent in
their manner of life; they strove for independence of the
ecclesiastical authorities, until in the middle of the thirteenth
century one of their own abbots quotes against them the saying that
"among the monks of the Cistercian Order whatever is pleasing is
lawful, whatever is lawful is possible, whatever is possible is done."

[Sidenote: Grant of privileges.]

This degeneracy of the monastic Orders was due in no small measure to
the policy of the Papacy. The monasteries, in their desire to shake
themselves free from the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese,
appealed to Rome; and the Pope, in pursuit of his policy of
superseding the local authorities, encouraged the monks to regard
themselves as a kind of papal militia. Thus from the time of Gregory
VII, at all events, all kinds of exemptions and privileges were
granted to the monastic communities in general and to the abbots of
the greater houses in particular. Exemption from the visitation of the
local bishop was one of the most frequent grants, until the great
Orders became too powerful to be afraid of any interference. This
carried with it the right of jurisdiction by the abbot and general
chapter over all churches to which the monastic body had the right of
presentation. This was an increasingly serious matter, for pious
donors were constantly bequeathing churches and tithes to favourite
Orders and popular houses, and the abbot attempted with considerable
success to usurp the definitely episcopal authority by instituting the
parish priest. Nor was this the only matter in which the abbot
substituted himself for the bishop. The monastic community might build
a church without any reference to the local ecclesiastical authority,
and the abbot might consecrate it and any altar in it. It is true that
if any monk of the house or secular clergyman serving one of the
churches in the gift of the house desired ordination to any step in
the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the abbot was limited to choosing a
bishop who might be asked to perform the duty; but in the course of
the thirteenth century, in some cases at least, the Popes gave to
certain abbots the privilege of advancing candidates to the minor
Orders. Probably Gregory VII began the grants of insignia which marked
the episcopal office to abbots of important houses. The Abbot of St.
Maximin in Trier certainly obtained from him permission to wear a
mitre and episcopal gloves. Urban II granted to the Abbot of Cluny the
right to appear in a dalmatic with a mitre and episcopal sandals and
gloves.

[Sidenote: Forged claims.]

What could be gained by favour could also be obtained by payment or
claimed by forgery. The expenses of the Roman Curia increased; the
monastic Orders were wealthy. Moreover, the critical faculty was
slightly developed. Certain monasteries became notorious for the
manufacture of documents in their own favour, St. Augustine's at
Canterbury being especially bad offenders; and certain individuals
from time to time supplied such material to all monasteries which
would pay for them; while, finally, in return for well-bestowed gifts,
the Roman Curia was often willing to recognise the authenticity of a
spurious claim.




CHAPTER VI

ST. BERNARD


[Sidenote: Honorius II.]

Calixtus II died in December, 1124, and in a few months (May, 1125)
Henry V followed him to the grave. The imperial party at Rome had
disappeared, but, on the other hand, Calixtus had established only a
truce between the Roman factions. The Frangipani and Pierleoni
families each nominated a successor to him, but the former forcibly
placed their candidate in the papal chair. The six years of the
pontificate of Honorius II (1124-30) are unimportant.

[Sidenote: Lothair II.]

It was perhaps fortunate for the Papacy that the allegiance of Germany
was also divided. With Henry V expired the male line of the Salian or
Franconian House. He had intended to secure the succession for his
nephew, Frederick the One-eyed, Duke of Suabia and head of the family
of Hohenstaufen. But the anti-Franconian party procured the election
of Lothair, Duke of Saxony, who had built up for himself a practically
independent territorial power on the north-eastern side of Germany,
and had taken a prominent part in opposition to Henry V.

[Sidenote: Lothair and the Concordat.]

Lothair's election, then, was a triumph for the Papacy, and the Church
party could not let pass so good an opportunity of revising the
relations of State and Church in Germany. They had maintained from the
first that the Concordat of Worms was a personal arrangement between
Calixtus II and Henry V. But the exact nature of Lothair's promise on
election is a matter of great dispute. According to the account of an
anonymous writer, he undertook that the Church should exercise entire
freedom in episcopal elections without being controlled, "as formerly"
(an obvious reference to the Concordat of Worms), by the presence of
the lay power or by a recommendation from it, and that after the
consecration (not before, according to the terms of the Concordat) the
Emperor should, without any payment, invest the prelate with the
regalia by the sceptre and should receive his oath of fealty "saving
his Order." Lothair's actual conduct, however, in the matter of
appointments seems to have been guided by the terms of the Concordat.

[Sidenote: Lothair and the Hohenstaufen.]

Frederick of Hohenstaufen did homage with the rest of the nobles to
Lothair, but not unnaturally Lothair distrusted him. Frederick was
heir to all the allodial possessions of the late Emperor; but Lothair
persuaded to a decision which would have deprived Frederick of a large
portion of these, and thus have rendered him and his house practically
innocuous. When Frederick refused to accept this decision he was put
to the ban of the Empire. The Hohenstaufen party challenged Lothair's
title to the throne, and put up as their candidate Frederick's younger
brother Conrad, Duke of Franconia, who, having been absent in
Palestine, had never done homage to Lothair. Conrad was crowned King
in Italy, but he was excommunicated by Pope Honorius, and neither in
Germany nor in Italy did the Hohenstaufen cause advance.

[Sidenote: Schism in the Papacy.]

Meanwhile a crisis at Rome quite overshadowed the German disputes.
Honorius II died in February, 1130. Immediately the party of the
Frangipani, who had stood around him, met and proclaimed a successor
as Innocent II. This was irregular, and in any case the act was that
of a minority of the Cardinals. It must have been, therefore, with
some confidence in the justice of their cause that the opposition
party met at a later hour, and by the votes of a majority of the
College of Cardinals elected the Cardinal Peter Leonis, the grandson
of a converted Jew and formerly a monk of Cluny, as Anacletus II.
There was no question of principle at stake; it was a mere struggle of
factions. The partisans of Innocent charged Anacletus with the most
heinous crimes. Clearly he was ambitious and able, wealthy and
unscrupulous. Moreover, for the moment he was successful. By whatever
means, he gradually won the whole of Rome; and Innocent, deserted,
made his way by Pisa and Genoa to Burgundy, and so to France. His
reception by the Abbey of Cluny was a great strength to his cause, and
he there consecrated the new church, which had been forty years in
building and was larger than any church yet erected in France. In
order that the schism in the Papacy should not be reproduced in every
bishopric and abbey of his kingdom, Louis VI of France summoned a
Council at Etampes, near Paris, which should decide between the
respective merits of the rival Popes.

[Sidenote: Bernard of Clairvaux.]

To this Council a special invitation was sent to the great monk who
for the next twenty years dominates the Western Church and completely
over-shadows the contemporary Popes. We have of seen that it was the
advent of Bernard and his large party at the monastery of Citeaux in
1113 that saved the newly founded Order from premature collapse.
Although only twenty-four years of age, Bernard was entrusted with the
third of the parties sent forth in succession to seek new homes for
the Order, and he and his twelve companions settled in a gloomy valley
in the northernmost corner of Burgundy, which was henceforth to be
known as Clairvaux. Here the hardships suffered by the monks in their
maintenance of the strict Benedictine rule and the entire mastery over
his bodily senses obtained by their young abbot built up a reputation
which reacted on the whole body of the Cistercians, and soon made them
the most revered and widespread of all the monastic Orders. Bernard
himself became the unconscious worker of many miracles: he was the
friend and adviser of great potentates in Church and State, and
without the least effort on his own part he was gradually acquiring a
position as the arbiter of Christendom.

[Sidenote: Acceptance of Innocent II.]

As yet he had confined his interferences in secular matters to the
kingdom of France and some of its great fiefs; he had rebuked the King
of France for persecution of two bishops; he had remonstrated with the
Count of Champagne for cruelty to a vassal. Now he was called upon to
intervene for the first time in a matter of European importance. The
whole question of the papal election was submitted to his judgment,
and his clear decision in favour of Innocent carried the allegiance of
France. Advocates of Innocent could not base his claims on legal
right, and Bernard led the way in asserting his superiority in
personal merit over his rival. At Chartres Innocent met Henry I of
England and Normandy, and again it was Bernard's eloquence which won
Henry's adhesion. A Synod of German clergy at Würzburg acknowledged
Innocent, and Lothair accepted the decision. But when Innocent met the
German King at Liège in March, 1131, fortunately for the Pope Bernard
was still by his side. It is true that Lothair stooped to play the
part of papal groom, which had been played only by Conrad, the
rebellious son of Henry IV; that he and his wife were both crowned by
the Pope in the cathedral; and that he promised to lead the Pope back
to Rome. But in return for his services Lothair tried to use his
opportunity for going back upon the Concordat and claiming the
restoration of the right of investiture. Bernard, however, came to the
help of the Pope, and, backed by the general indignation and alarm at
the meanness of Lothair's conduct, forced the Emperor to withdraw his
demands. Innocent spent some time longer in France, among other places
visiting Clairvaux, where the hard life of the inmates filled him and
his Italian followers with astonishment.

Throughout these wanderings since the Council of Etampes Bernard had
been the constant companion of the Pope, and had ultimately become not
merely his most trusted but practically his only counsellor. As a
matter of form questions were submitted to the Cardinals, but no
action was taken until Bernard's view had been ascertained. In April,
1132, Innocent once more appeared in Italy. Meanwhile Anacletus,
having failed to obtain the support of any of the great monarchs of
the West, turned to the Normans, and by the grant of the royal title
gained the allegiance of Roger, Duke of Apulia and Count of Sicily. A
few other parts of Europe still acknowledged Anacletus. Scotland was
too distant to be troubled by Bernard's influence; but in Lombardy the
great abbot worked indefatigably; and the Archbishop of Milan, who had
accepted his pallium from Anacletus, was driven out by the citizens,
who subsequently welcomed Bernard with enthusiasm and tried to keep
him as their archbishop. Duke William X of Aquitaine also continued to
acknowledge Anacletus, and when at length Bernard accompanied the
legate of Innocent to a conference at his court, the saint had
recourse to all the methods of ecclesiastical terrorism at his command
before he gained the fearful acquiescence of the ruler.

[Sidenote: Lothair at Rome.]

At length Lothair felt himself sufficiently free to fulfil his promise
to Innocent. But the turbulent condition of Germany prevented him from
bringing a force of any size, and, despite the vehement eloquence of
Bernard, among the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany the friend of
Innocent was still the German King and was viewed with much suspicion.
Fortunately, however, Roger of Sicily, the one strong supporter of
Anacletus, was engaged in a struggle with his nobles and could give no
help. But Lothair desired to avoid bloodshed if possible. He made no
attempt, therefore, to get possession of St. Peter's and the Leonine
city, which were in the hands of Anacletus and his followers, but
contented himself with the peaceful occupation of the rest of Rome. He
and his wife were crowned in the church of St. John Lateran by
Innocent (June, 1133). Lothair seems again to have used his
opportunity to attempt a recovery of the right of investiture from the
Pope; but on this occasion the opponent of the Emperor was his own
favourite counsellor, Archbishop Norbert of Magdeburg, the founder of
the Premonstratensian Order. A few days later, however, Innocent
published two bulls dealing with the questions at issue between
himself and the Emperor. The first merely confirms the arrangements of
the Concordat, although it certainly omits all mention of the presence
of the King at the election. The second bull deals with the
inheritance of the Countess Matilda. Henry V had never recognised the
donation of the Countess to the Papacy, and consequently, as a lapsed
fief and part of the late Emperor's possessions, the lands could be
claimed by his Hohenstaufen heirs. This perhaps accounts for Lothair's
readiness to accept the conditions imposed by the Pope. Innocent
invested him by a ring with the allodial or freehold lands of the
Countess in return for an annual tribute and on the understanding that
at Lothair's death they should revert to the Papacy. Lothair took no
oath of fealty for them, but such oath was exacted from his
son-in-law, Henry the Proud of Bavaria, to whom the inheritance was
made over on the same conditions. Lothair had perhaps saved the
much-coveted lands from being lawfully claimed by the Hohenstaufen;
but it was the Pope who had really gained by these transactions, for
he had obtained from a lawfully crowned Emperor the recognition of the
papal right to their possession. Indeed, the whole episode of
Lothair's coronation was treated as a papal triumph, and by Innocent's
direction a picture was placed in the Lateran palace in which Lothair
was represented as kneeling before the throned Pope to receive the
imperial crown, while underneath as inscribed the following distich:--

  "Rex stetit ante fores, jurans prius urbis honores,
  Post homo fit papae, sumit quo dante coronam."

Lothair, however, never saw this record of his visit. He returned to
Germany, having secured, at any rate for himself, the right of
investing his ecclesiastics with their temporalities, the lands of the
Countess Matilda, and, most important of all, the imperial crown
bestowed at Rome by a Pope who was recognised practically throughout
the West. So strengthened, he intended to crush the still opposing
Hohenstaufen. But the intercessions of his own Empress and the papal
legates were backed up by the fiery eloquence of the all-powerful
Bernard, who appeared at the Diet of Bamberg (March, 1135). Lothair
was overruled and terms were granted, which first Frederick of Suabia
and, later on, Conrad were induced to accept. Frederick confined
himself to Suabia, but Conrad attached himself to Lothair's Court, and
became one of the Emperor's most honoured followers.

After Lothair's return to Germany, Roger of Sicily gradually recovered
his authority in Southern Italy, and he even made use of his
championship of Anacletus to annex unopposed some of the papal lands.
Finally, to the scandal of Christendom, the abbey of Monte Cassino,
the premier monastery of the West, declared for Anacletus. Both
Innocent and the Norman foes of Roger appealed to Lothair, who crossed
the Alps, for a second time, in August, 1136, this time, accompanied
by a sufficient force. He did not delay long in Lombardy: he ignored
Rome, which apart from Roger was powerless. One army, under Lothair,
moved down the shores of the Adriatic; another, under Henry of
Bavaria, along the west coast. The fleets of Genoa and Pisa
co-operated, and Roger retired into Sicily. But both Emperor and Pope
claimed the conquered duchy of Apulia, and the dispute was only
settled by both presenting to the new duke the banner by which the
investiture was made. It did not help to soothe the quarrel when the
recovered monastery of Monte Cassino was handed over to the Emperor's
Chancellor. Lothair could remain no longer in Italy; but he fell ill
on his way back, and died in a Tyrolese village on December 3rd, 1138.

[Sidenote: The end of the schism.]

Lothair had done nothing to end the schism. Innocent was back in Rome,
but Anacletus had never been ousted from it. Meanwhile, in the spring
of 1137, Bernard had also responded to the appeal of Innocent and
returned to Italy. While Lothair was overrunning Apulia Bernard was
winning over the adherents of Anacletus in Rome. When Lothair retired
Roger immediately began to recover his dominions; but when Bernard
made overtures to him on behalf of Innocent, he professed himself
quite ready to hear the arguments on both sides. A conference took
place between a skilful supporter of Anacletus and this "rustic
abbot"; but although Bernard convinced his rhetorical adversary, Roger
had too much to lose in acknowledging Innocent, for he would be
obliged to surrender the papal lands which he had occupied and,
perhaps, the royal title, the gift of Anacletus. The end, however, was
at hand. Less than two months after Lothair's death Anacletus died
(January 25, 1138). His few remaining followers elected a successor,
but this was more with the desire of making good terms than of
prolonging the schism. Innocent bribed and Bernard persuaded, and the
anti-Pope surrendered of his own accord. Bernard, to whom was rightly
ascribed the merit of ending the scandal of disunion in Christendom,
immediately escaped from his admirers and returned to the solitude of
Clairvaux and his literary labours. These were not all self-imposed.
Among his correspondents were persons in all ranks of life; and his
letters, no less than his formal treatises, prove his influence as one
of the most deeply spiritual teachers of the Middle Ages.

[Sidenote Roger of Sicily.]

Roger of Sicily alone had not accepted Innocent; but a foolish attempt
to coerce him ended in the defeat and capture of the Pope. In return
for the acknowledgment of papal suzerainty, which involved oblivion of
the imperial claims, Innocent not only confirmed to Roger and his
successors both his conquests in Southern Italy and the royal title,
but even, by the grant of the legatine power to the King himself,
exempted his kingdom from the visits of papal legates. Roger was
supreme in Church and State. A cruel yet vigorous and able ruler, he
built up a centralised administrative system from which Henry II of
England did not disdain to take lessons. His possession of Sicily
carried him to Malta and thence to the north coast of Africa; and
before his death in 1154 Tunis was added to his dominions. He was thus
one of the greatest among the early Crusaders, and perhaps the most
notable ruler of his time.

[Sidenote: Conrad III.]

Lothair hoped to leave in his son-in-law a successor with irresistible
claims. But the very influence to which Lothair owed his own election
was now to be cast into the scale against the representative of his
family; while the grounds of objection to the succession of Frederick
of Hohenstaufen to Henry V now held good against Henry of Bavaria,
Saxony, and Tuscany. The Pope and the German nobles were equally
afraid of a ruler whose insolent demeanour had already won him the
title of "the Proud." They took as their candidate the lately rejected
Hohenstaufen Conrad, whose behaviour since his submission had gained
him favour in proportion as the conduct of Henry of Bavaria had
alienated the other nobles. Conrad was crowned at Aachen by the papal
legate, and Henry made his submission. But Conrad, like Lothair, felt
himself insecure with so powerful a subject. Accordingly he took away
from him the duchy of Saxony, and gave it to the heir of the old dukes
in the female line. When Henry refused to accept the decision Conrad
put him to the ban of the Empire and deprived him of Bavaria also,
which he proceeded to confer upon a relative of his own. But Conrad's
obvious attempt to advance his own family offended the nobles, and the
death of Henry the Proud in 1139 opened the way for a compromise.
Saxony was made over to Henry's youthful son, known in history as
Henry the Lion, while Bavaria was to be the wedding portion of Henry
the Proud's widow if she married Conrad's relative, who was already
Margrave of Austria.

[Sidenote: Arnold of Brescia.]

But despite this elimination of all rivals Conrad was so much occupied
elsewhere that he never managed to reach Italy. And yet his presence
there was eagerly desired. It was under the guidance of their bishops
that the cities of Lombardy had freed themselves from subjection to
the feudal nobles. But with the growth of wealth they resented the
patronage of the bishops and were inclined to listen to those who
denounced the temporal possessions of the Church. The movement spread
to Rome. Here the municipality still existed in name, but it was quite
overlaid by the papal prefect and the feudal nobles of the Campagna;
and the Roman people had no means of increasing their wealth by the
agriculture or the commerce which was open to the cities of Tuscany or
Lombardy. A leader was found in Arnold of Brescia (1138). He seems to
have been a pupil of Abailard, who devoted himself to practical
reforms. He began in his native Lombardy to advocate apostolic poverty
as a remedy for the acknowledged evils of the Church. Condemned by the
second Lateran Council (1139), he retired to France, and in 1140 stood
by the side of Abailard at the Council of Sens. After Abailard's
condemnation Arnold took refuge at Zurich, where, despite the
denunciations of Bernard, he found protection from the papal legate,
who had been a fellow-pupil of Abailard. Arnold returned to Italy in
1145, and was absolved by the Pope.

[Sidenote: The Roman Republic.]

The course of affairs in Rome brought him once more to the front. In
1143 Innocent II had offended the Romans, who in revenge proclaimed a
republic with a popularly elected senate and a patrician in place of
the papal prefect. Innocent died (September, 1143); his successor
survived him by less than six months, and the next Pope, Lucius II,
was killed in attempting to get possession of the Capitol, which was
the seat of the new government. The choice of the Cardinals now fell
upon the abbot of a small monastery in the neighbourhood of Rome, who
took the title of Eugenius III (1145-53). He was a pupil of Bernard,
who feared for the appointment of a man of such simplicity and
inexperience. But Eugenius developed an unexpected capacity, and
forced the Romans to recognise for a time his prefect and his
suzerainty. But Arnold's presence in Rome was an obstacle to permanent
peace. Both Arnold and Bernard eagerly sought the same end--the
purification of the Church. But in Bernard's eyes Arnold's connection
with Abailard convicted him of heresy, and his doctrine of apostolic
poverty was construed by the ascetic abbot of the strict Cistercian
Order as an attack upon the influence under cover of the wealth of the
Church. Nor was Arnold a republican in the ordinary sense. He expelled
the Pope and organised, under the name of the Equestrian order, a
militia of the lesser nobles and the more substantial burgesses, such
as existed in the cities of Lombardy. But he did not desire to
repudiate the Emperor; and at his instigation the Romans summoned
Conrad to their aid and to accept the imperial crown at their hands.
Eugenius spent almost his whole pontificate in exile; his successor,
Anastasius IV, during a short reign, accepted the republic, but
Hadrian IV (1154-9) took the first excuse for boldly placing the city
for the first time under an interdict. The consequent cessation of
pilgrims during Holy Week and the loss of their offerings caused the
fickle Romans to expel their champion, and Arnold wandered about until
a few months later Frederick Barbarossa sacrificed him to the renewed
alliance of Empire and Papacy (1154).

[Sidenote: The second Crusade.]

Conrad III, then, never was crowned Emperor. It was no fault of his
that he never visited Rome. Bernard's influence caused him to postpone
his immediate duties for a work which every Christian of the time
regarded as of paramount importance. The first Crusade had met with a
measure of success only because the Mohammedan powers were divided.
The Crusaders were organised into the kingdom of Jerusalem and the
principalities of Tripoli, Antioch, and Edessa. But they quarrelled
incessantly. Meanwhile Imad-ed-din Zangi, the Atabek or Sultan of
Mosul on the Tigris, extended his arms over all Mesopotamia and
Northern Syria, and in 1144 he conquered the Latin principality of
Edessa. The whole of Europe was shocked at the disaster. Pope Eugenius
delegated to Bernard the task of preaching a new crusade. The young
King, Louis VII of France, had already taken the Crusader's vow, but
so far the earnest entreaty of his minister, Suger, Abbot of St.
Denys, had kept him from his purpose. But at the Council of Vezelai in
1146 the eloquence of Bernard bore down all considerations of
prudence. Conrad III was much harder to persuade, for he felt the need
of his presence at home. But Bernard was not to be denied, and by
working upon Conrad's feelings at the moment of the celebration of the
Mass he entirely overcame the better judgment of the German King.

Events proved in every way the mischievous nature of Bernard's
influence. The Crusade was a total failure. Only a small remnant of
the force which followed either King reached Palestine; and the only
offensive operation undertaken--an attack upon Damascus--had to be
abandoned. Nothing had been done to break the growing power of Zangi's
son, Noureddin, the uncle and predecessor of the great Saladin.

[Sidenote: The divorce of Louis VII.]

The effects were scarcely less disastrous in Western Europe. Suger
supplied Louis with money and defended his throne against plots, and
ultimately persuaded him to return to France. But during the Crusade
Louis and his wife Eleanor, the daughter and heiress of William X of
Aquitaine, had quarrelled bitterly. Louis had disgusted his
high-spirited wife by behaving more like a pilgrim than a warrior;
while Eleanor had attempted to divert the French troops to the aid of
her uncle, Raymond of Antioch. Suger alone preserved some sort of
harmony between the ill-assorted pair; but he died in 1151, and
Bernard, who had never approved of the marriage on canonical grounds,
lent his support to Louis' desire for a declaration of its invalidity,
though Louis and Eleanor had been married for thirteen years and there
were two daughters. The dissolution of the marriage was pronounced by
an ecclesiastical Council in 1152, and in the same year Eleanor,
taking with her all her extensive lands, married the young Henry of
Anjou and Normandy, who two years later became King of England.

[Sidenote: Bernard as defender of the Faith.]

Bernard and Suger were friends; but while the predominant work of
Suger's life had been the supremacy of the House of Capet, it is vain
to attempt to trace in Bernard any prejudice in favour of a growing
French nationality. He represents the cosmopolitan Church of the
Middle Ages; and his career is a supreme instance of the power which
results from an absolutely single-minded devotion to a lofty cause. In
masterful vehemence he challenges comparison with Hildebrand; but
unlike the Pope, he never identified the Church with his own
interests. He steadfastly refused all offers of advancement for
himself, although he did not dissuade his own monks from accepting
preferment. He would have preferred to live out his life as the
obscure head of a poor and secluded community; and even if the
political condition of the time had not brought constant appeals for
help to him, his duty to the Church would have made him a public
character. For the work of his life which was perhaps most congenial
to him was the defence of the doctrine of the Church against heretical
teachers. He has been called "the last of the Fathers," and his whole
conception and methods were those of the great Christian writers of
the early centuries. To the great saint self-discipline through
obedience to the ordinances of the Church was the cure for all evil
suggestions of the human heart; while as for the intellect, its duty
was to believe the revealed faith as propounded by the authorities of
the Church. Like St. Augustine, Bernard did not despise learning; but
he would confine the term to the study of religion. Secular learning
was for the most part not only a waste of precious time, but an actual
snare of the devil. Thus Bernard stood for all that was most
uncompromising in the theological attitude of the time. Speculative
discussion was an abomination; for the end of conversation was
spiritual edification, not the advancement of knowledge; and what to
strong minds might be mental gymnastics, in the case of weaker
brethren caused the undermining of their faith. Against heretics of
the commoner sort, such as the Petrobrusians, who impugned the whole
system of the Church and appealed to the mere words of Scripture,
there was only one line to be taken. But Bernard was no persecutor.
During his preaching of the Crusade a monk perverted the popular
excitement to an attack upon the Jews in the cities of the Rhineland:
Bernard peremptorily interfered and crushed the rival preacher.
Similarly with heretics. He trusted to his preaching--attested, as it
was commonly supposed, by miracles--to convince the people; while the
leaders when captured were subjected to monastic discipline.

[Sidenote: Abailard.]

But such popular forms of unbelief were merely the outcome of the
speculations of subtler minds, which it was necessary to stop at the
fountain-head. The arch-heretic of the time was Peter Abailard, who
routed in succession two great teachers--William of Champeaux in
dialectic in the great cathedral school of Paris, and Anselm of Laon,
a pupil of Anselm of Canterbury, in theology. He gathered round him on
the Mount of Ste. Geneviève, just outside Paris, a large band of
students, in whom he inculcated his rationalistic methods. For his was
a definite attempt to obtain by reason a basis for his faith. How
could such teaching be allowed to continue unreproved by Bernard, who
held that the sole office of the reason was to lead the mind astray?
But in the height of his fame Abailard, still quite young, loved the
beautiful and erudite Heloise. He abused her trust, and when she in
her infatuation for his genius refused to monopolise for herself by
marriage the talents which were for the service of the world, she and
he both entered the monastic life. Abailard passed through several
phases of this--a monk at St. Denys; a hermit gradually gathering a
band of admirers round a church which they built and he dedicated to
the Third Person of the Trinity, the Paraclete; and finally the abbot
of a poor monastery in his own native Brittany. While an inmate of St.
Denys a work of his on the Trinity was condemned at a Council at
Soissons presided over by the papal legate (1121). It was twenty years
before he was again subjected to the censures of the Church. But,
meanwhile, he had more than once fallen foul of Bernard, and had not
hesitated to flout with his gibes the one man before whom the whole of
Catholic Europe bent in awestruck reverence. But the time came when
Bernard, noting the spread of the Petrobrusian heresy, determined to
strike at the source of these errors. He appealed for assistance to
the friends of orthodoxy from the Pope downwards. Abailard determined
to anticipate attack and desired to be heard before an assembly to be
held at Sens (1140). Bernard reluctantly consented to take part in a
public controversy. But when they met, Abailard, probably feeling
himself surrounded by an unsympathetic audience, suddenly refused to
speak and appealed to the Pope. On his way to Rome he fell ill at
Cluny, where the saintly abbot, Peter the Venerable, received him as a
monk. He made a confession which chiefly amounted to a regret that he
had used words open to misconstruction, and he died in 1142 the inmate
of a Cluniac house.

Bernard remained upon the alert, intent on checking any further spread
of the teaching of Abailard's followers. But he had pushed matters to
an extreme, and there were many in high place who resented his efforts
to dictate the doctrine of the Church. Thus Gilbert de la Porrée,
Bishop of Poictiers, a pupil of Abailard, was accused at the Council
of Rheims (1148) of erroneous doctrines regarding the being of God and
the Sacraments. Bernard tried to use his influence over Pope Eugenius
in order to procure the bishop's condemnation, and stirred up the
French clergy to assist him. The Cardinals addressed an indignant
remonstrance to the Pope, pointing out that as he owed his elevation
from a private position to the papacy to them, he belonged to them
rather than to himself, that he was allowing private friendship to
interfere with public duty, and that "that abbot of yours" and the
Gallican Church were usurping the function of the See of Rome. Bernard
had to explain away the action of his party, and the Council contented
itself with exacting from the accused a general agreement with the
faith of the Roman Church, and this was represented by Gilbert's
friends as a triumph.

Bernard's death restored the leadership of Christendom to the official
head, and the removal of several others of the chief actors of the
time opened the way not only for new men, but for the emergence of new
questions. In 1152 Conrad III ended his well-intentioned but somewhat
ineffectual reign. In 1153 Pope Eugenius died at Rome, to which he had
at length been restored a few months previously. Six weeks later St.
Bernard followed him to the grave. It was not long before the papal
act ratified the general opinion of Christendom, and in 1174 Alexander
III placed his name among those which the Church desired to have in
everlasting remembrance.




CHAPTER VII

THE SCHOOLMEN AND THEOLOGY


[Sidenote: Secular Studies.]

Mediaeval learning, whether sacred or secular, was founded upon
authority. The Scholasticus, who took the place of the ancient
Grammaticus, was not an investigator, but merely an interpreter. On
the one side the books of the sacred Scriptures as interpreted by the
Fathers were the rule of faith; on the other side as the guide of
reason stood the works of the Philosopher, as Aristotle was called in
the Middle Ages. But until the thirteenth century few of his works
were known, and those only in Latin translations. Here were the
materials, slight enough, on which hung future development. The
secular knowledge taught in the ordinary schools was that represented
by the division of the Seven Arts into the elementary Trivium of
Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, followed by the Quadrivium of Music,
Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy. The scope of the Trivium was much
wider than the terms denote. Thus Grammar included the study of the
classical Latin authors, which never entirely ceased; Rhetoric
comprised the practice of composition in prose and verse, and even a
knowledge of the elements of Roman Law; Dialectic or Logic became the
centre of the whole secular education, because it was the only
intellectual exercise which was supposed to be independent of pagan
writers. In the Quadrivium--the scientific education of the
time--Arithmetic and Astronomy were taught for the purpose of
calculating the times of the Christian festivals; Music consisted
chiefly of the rules of plain-song. It was the subjects of the
Quadrivium which were subsequently enlarged in scope by the
discoveries of the twelfth century. Apart from these subjects little
attempt was made at a systematic training in theology. In so far as
any such existed it was purely doctrinal, and aimed merely at enabling
those in Holy Orders to read the Bible and the Fathers for themselves
and to expound them to others.

[Sidenote: Scholasticism.]

Now the speculative intellect trained in dialectic had no material to
work upon save what could be got from the Scriptures, the Fathers, and
the dogmas of the Church; and Scholasticism is the name given to the
attempt to apply the processes of logic to the systematisation and the
interpretation of the Catholic faith. The movement was one which,
narrow as it seems to us, yet made for ultimate freedom of human
thought; for it meant the exercise of the intellect on matters which
for long were regarded as beyond the reach of rationalistic
explanation. There was much difference of opinion among the thinkers
as to the limits to be assigned to such freedom of speculation on the
mysteries of the faith, some starting from the standpoint of idealists
and endeavouring to avoid the logical consequences of their
speculations; while others, adopting so far as possible a position of
pure empiricism, set tradition at defiance, and hoped by the aid of
reason to reach the conclusions of divine revelation.

[Sidenote: Realists and Nominalists.]

The philosophical problem to which the mediæval thinkers addressed
themselves is one that it is essential to the progress of human
thought to solve. Whence do we derive general notions (Universals, as
they were called), and do they correspond to anything which actually
exists? Thus for the purpose of classifying our knowledge we use
certain terms, such as genera, species, and others more technical. Do
these in reality exist independently of particular individuals or
substances? One school of philosophers, basing their reasoning upon
Plato, maintained that such general ideas had a real existence of
their own, and hence gained the name of Realists. But another school,
who took Aristotle as their champion, held that reality can be
asserted of the individual alone, that there is nothing real in the
general idea except the name by which it is designated; while some of
these Nominalists, as they came to be called, even proclaimed that the
parts of an individual whole were mere words, and could not be
considered as having an existence of their own. With the application
of these definitions to theological dogmas we reach the beginning of
Scholastic Theology. Here both sides were soon landed in difficulties.
Nominalism, in its denial of reality to general notions, undermined
the Catholic idea of the Church: in its recognition of none except
individuals it destroyed the whole conception of the solidarity of
original sin; while those of its professors who allowed no existence
of their own to the parts of an individual whole, resolved the Trinity
into three Gods. On the other hand, the danger of Realism was that,
since individuals were regarded merely as forms or modes of some
general idea, these philosophers were inclined to make no distinction
between individuals and to fall into pantheism. As a result, the
personality of man, and with it the immortality of the soul,
disappeared, and even the personality of God threatened to lose itself
in the universe which He had created. These tendencies will be clear
from a short account of the chief schoolmen or writers on Scholastic
Philosophy.

[Sidenote: Roscelin and Anselm.]

The first great names are those of Roscelin and Anselm of Canterbury.
Roscelin (between 1050 and 1125), primarily a dialectician, rigidly
applied his logic to theological dogmas. If we may judge from the
accounts of his opponents, Anselm and Abailard, he took up a position
of extreme individualism and denied reality alike to a whole and to
the parts of which any whole is commonly said to be composed. The
application of this principle to the doctrine of the Trinity landed
him in tritheism, and he did not shrink from the reproach. Roscelin, a
theologian by accident, was answered by Anselm who was primarily a
theologian, and a dialectician by accident. If Roscelin was the
founder of Nominalism Anselm identified Realism with the doctrine of
the Church. But Anselm's Realism is not the result of independent
thought. In his methods he has been rightly styled the "last of the
Fathers." His keynote was Belief in the Christian faith as the road to
understanding it. Thus his object was to give to the dogmas accepted
by the Church a philosophical demonstration. To him Realism was the
orthodox philosophical doctrine because it was the one most in harmony
with Christian theology. He applied philosophical arguments to the
explanation of those tenets of the faith which later scholastic
writers placed among the mysteries to be accepted without question.

[Sidenote: Abailard.]

The reputed founder of definite Realism was William of Champeaux
(1060-1121), a pupil of Roscelin himself, a teacher at Paris, and
ultimately Bishop of Chalons. By the account of his enemy Abailard, he
held an uncompromising Realism which maintained that the Universal was
a substance or thing which was present in its entirety in each
individual. It was the presence of such crude Realism as this which
gave his opportunity to the greatest teacher of this early period of
Scholasticism, Peter Abailard (1079-1142). A pupil of both Roscelin
and William of Champeaux--the two extremes of Nominalism and
Realism--he aimed in his teaching at arriving at a _via media_ to
which subsequent writers have given the name Conceptualism. According
to him the individual is the only true substance, and the genus is
that which is asserted of a number of individuals; it is therefore a
name used as a sign--a concept, although he does not use the word.
Thus he does not condemn the Realistic theory borrowed from Plato, of
Universals as having an existence of their own; he regards them as
ideas or exemplars which existed in the divine mind before the
creation of things. But he opposes the tendency in Realism to treat as
identical the qualities which resemble each other in different
individuals, since that abolishes the personality of the individual
which to him is the only reality. Like Roscelin he did not hesitate to
apply his dialectic to theology. Here, while repudiating the tritheism
of his master, he practically reproduced the old heresy of Sabellius
which reduced the Trinity to three aspects or attributes of the Divine
Being--power, wisdom, and love. "A doctrine is to be believed," he
held, "not because God has said it, but because we are convinced by
reason that it is so." His whole attitude was that of the free, if
reverent, enquirer. "By doubt," he says, "we come to enquiry; by
enquiry we reach the truth." His book _Sic et Non_, a collection
of conflicting opinions of the Christian Fathers on the chief tenets
of the faith, was to be the first step towards arriving at the truth.

[Sidenote: Mysticism.]

He was condemned twice--his doctrine of the Trinity at Soissons in
1121, his whole position at Sens in 1141. The leaders of orthodoxy met
him not with argument but with a demand for recantation. St. Norbert
during the early part of his life, and St. Bernard both early and
late, pursued him with their enmity. Their objection was not to his
particular views, but to his whole attitude towards divine revelation;
and the conclusions in which the use of the scholastic method landed
its advocates perhaps justified the rigid theologians in the general
distrust of the exercise of reason on such subjects. St. Bernard did
not hesitate to attack even Gilbert de la Porrée, Bishop of Poictiers,
an avowed Realist, who attempted to explain the Trinity. In fact, St.
Bernard represents the reaction from Scholasticism, which took the
form of Mysticism, that is, the purely contemplative attitude towards
the verities of the Christian creed. In this he was followed with much
greater extravagance by the school which found its home in the great
abbey of St. Victor--Hugh (1097-1143), who formulated the sentence
"Knowledge is belief, and belief is love," and Richard (died in 1173),
who applied to the intuitive perception of spiritual things and to the
love of them the same dialectical and metaphysical methods as the
Schoolmen applied to reason.

[Sidenote: After Abailard.]

The results of Abailard's work are seen in two directions. His _Sic
et Non_ became the foundation of the work of the "Summists," who,
in the place of Abailard's purely critical work, occupied themselves
in systematising authorities with a view to the reconciliation of
their conflicting opinions. The greatest of these was Peter the
Lombard (died 1160), who became Bishop of Paris, and whose
_Sententiae_ was taken as the accredited text-book of theology
for the next three hundred years. With the Summists theology returned
to its attitude of unquestioning obedience to the conclusions of the
early Fathers. But in the second place, Abailard was indirectly
responsible for "the troubling of the Realistic waters," which
resulted in many modifications of the original position.

[Sidenote: Classical revival.]

A justification for the attitude of the Church towards the followers
of Abailard is to be found in the apparent exhaustion of the
speculative movement which had started at the end of the eleventh
century, and the consequent degeneracy of logical studies. It was a
result of this that in the second half of the twelfth century many of
the best minds were directing their energies into the channel of
classical learning which was to prepare the way for the next phase of
Scholasticism. Besides being a philosopher and a theologian, Abailard
was also a scholar well read in classical literature. The cathedral
school of Chartres, founded by Fulbert at the beginning of the
eleventh century, was the centre of this classical Renaissance, and it
rose to the height of its fame under Bernard Sylvester and his pupil,
William of Conches; while the greatest representative of this learning
was a pupil of William of Conches, John of Salisbury, an historian of
philosophy rather than himself a philosopher or theologian.

[Sidenote: Origin of universities.]

It was in the twelfth century and out of the cathedral schools that
the medieval universities arose. The monastic schools had spent their
intellectual force, and during this century they almost ceased to
educate the secular clergy. St. Anselm, when Abbot of Bec in Normandy,
was the last of the great monastic teachers. But it was not from the
school of Chartres but from that of Paris that the greatest University
of the Middle Ages took its origin. Paris was identified with the
scholastic studies of dialectic and theology, and it was the fame of
William of Champeaux, and still more that of Abailard, which drew
students in crowds to the cathedral school of Paris. But no university
immediately resulted. Indeed, the Guild of Masters, from which it
originated, is not traceable before 1170, and the four Nations and the
Rector did not exist until the following century. Its recognition as a
corporation dates from a bull of Innocent III about 1210. Its
development starts from the close of its struggle with the Chancellor
and cathedral school of Paris, in which contest it obtained the papal
help. Before the middle of the thirteenth century the University had
acquired its full constitution. But its great fame as a place of
education dates from the teaching of the two great Dominicans,
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas in the convent of their Order in
Paris during the middle years of the century. This new outburst of
philosophical studies was due to the recovery of many hitherto unknown
works of Aristotle, and as a consequence classical studies were
completely neglected and Chartres was deserted for Paris.

[Sidenote: Aristotle in the East.]

We have seen

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/7343